


A Thin Chain of Next Moments

by batyatoon, dotfic



Series: A Thin Chain of Next Moments [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-05
Updated: 2008-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batyatoon/pseuds/batyatoon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean makes a deal, and lives a life. (goes AU after Crossroad Blues)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: Follows canon up to Crossroad Blues. Puts season two canon in the blender, diverges completely from season three. It took us a while to write this; during the process we got Jossed and Kripked so many times our heads were spinning. Many thanks to our beta reader [](http://destina.livejournal.com/profile)[**destina**](http://destina.livejournal.com/) for her patience and her careful editing above and beyond the call of beta-dom. Title is from Bruce Springsteen.

The second kiss is like the first, and Dean tries not to notice that he enjoys the feel of her body pressed against his, how her tongue is both sweet and bitter, tasting of something charred.

Then she backs away with a half smile, out from under the water tower, and melts into the night.

Dean takes a few steps after her. It's involuntary, the urge to follow, hunt, and kill the demon, making him forget what he's just done.

A hoarse scream behind him brings him to a stop. He turns, pulling his gun before he recognizes the voice. His gun hand falls to hang limply at his side, the weapon forgotten, because his father is huddled up on the gravel at the crossroads and it's his father who's screaming.

"Dad?"

Naked, shivering and twitching, staring at nothing in blind panic, Dad doesn't seem to hear him. Dean kneels down and touches his shoulder and Dad flinches away with a cry.

"Dad --"

"It burns," his father rasps, "oh god, please, it burns --"

"Dad, it’s okay, you’re okay.." The night air is cool, and the gravel underfoot is downright cold, and his skin is pale and unmarked, but there’s heat radiating off him, enough to send up little wisps of sulfur-smelling steam. Dean shrugs out of his leather jacket and reaches to wrap it around Dad’s shaking shoulders, to return the jacket to its original owner.

The blow’s wild, flailing, and he never sees it coming. His father’s fist catches him high on the cheek and sends him staggering a few steps. He regains his balance, realizes he’s braced for a second punch that isn’t coming, and straightens up.

"Get away." It’s something between a snarl and a sob. "All you sons of bitches. Leave me alone ... ah, god, _no_." The snarl sinks away into a despairing whimper of fear, and he curls into a fetal huddle on the ground.

Dean stands where he is for several seconds, cold to the bones, unable to move. There’s a sick trembling in his stomach muscles, and his face stings where Dad hit him but he can already tell it’s not going to bruise, and this is wrong, this is _wrong_ , he shouldn’t be able to see Dad like this, nobody should --

Get hold, he tells himself harshly. Get hold. Cover him up. Get him inside.

A deep breath, and another, and then he pulls out his cell phone to call Sam.

"I've got Dad, meet us at the motel," is all he says when his brother answers. He hangs up before Sam can ask a question, and starts back toward his father, carefully keeping his movements gentle, non-threatening.

"Let's go. Dad? Dad, let’s go. I’m gonna get you in the car, it's just over there." He keeps talking, fuck, he's not even sure what he's saying, just so long as words keep coming out of his mouth, something to get his father's attention focused and away from the terrors he still thinks he's facing. "It's me. It's Dean. You're home. It's going to be okay."

He hooks Dad's arm around his own shoulders. The gravel’s sharp; he can see it digging into his father’s exposed skin, bits of it clinging to the flesh as he tries to pull Dad to his feet, but the hair-fine scratches left by the gravel are the only marks on him. The _only_ marks: Dad's arm seems to be fine and there's nothing on his thigh to show where the bullet went in.

He’s almost got him up when Dad kicks out at him with a wordless yell, tries to grapple his supporting arm. The attack’s feeble and uncoordinated, just a step above random flailing; Dean can block the blows easily, but not support him at the same time.

 _Weak,_ whispers the back of his mind distantly. Dad would laugh that attack to scorn, laugh and smack you on the back of the head for trying it -- not lightly, either. Dad wouldn’t ever _use_ a fool move like that. (Because Dad's ten feet tall and can shoot a fly out of the air and isn’t afraid of _anything_.)

"Dad, it's me, calm down --" Dean tries again, jerks back as his father's arm lashes out. Dad’s cursing him in a thin choked whine, and here and there in the string of foul words he catches the word _demons_.

 _Shit_. Even if he can get them into the car, how the hell's he supposed to drive with Dad fighting him the whole way? One panicked swipe from the passenger seat and they'll end up overturned in a ditch or wrapped around a telephone pole.

"God, Dad, I’m sorry," Dean mutters, and punches his father hard across the jaw.

* * *

The motel room door's open with light spilling out, framing Sam, who doesn't say a word, not one word, damn him, as he helps Dean carry their father inside.

The light’s too bright, making his gut spasm and his heart stutter like a trip-hammer. He clenches his jaw so tight it sends pain ricocheting up into his head, and he blinks hard against the blurring in his eyes. _Fuck_ , he's not going to crumble now. Not now. He’s needed.

They get Dad clothed in jeans that belong to Dean and a flannel shirt that belongs to Sam because Dean's shirts would probably stop just above Dad's wrist bone and be a little short on him. Not that he's thinking about things like that, except as a way to not think about the unsteadiness in his stomach or the tight set of Sam’s shoulders or the guarded glances Sam keeps throwing him.

Dad's still out cold, which is probably a blessing. This is happening too fast. One minute, Dad's gone, the next he's back, only not how Dean meant it to be.

Sam still doesn't say a word, but the question’s there in his face when he looks up, and there’s no ignoring it anymore. Dean takes a deep breath and launches in -- starting just after the demon vanished, starting with Dad appearing at the crossroads.

It’s hard to talk about; not that he can’t find the words to describe Dad’s condition, or the way he was yelling, but that he can’t make the description and Dad fit together in his head. Dad's been in bad shape before over the years, coming home from hunt after hunt with the countless minor injuries that are a hunter’s stock in trade: slashes, bites, bruises, burns, a broken bone or two. But it’s never been like this, not even that time the ghoul clawed him and it got infected, not even that time he had the flu and was out of his head with fever for most of a day. Never this ... if it were anybody else, the word would be _vulnerable_.

"He thinks he's still there," Dean finishes, and watches the horror and pity drain the color from his brother's face. "He thinks he's still in Hell."

There's a faint smell of charred things in the room, the same scent Dean had noticed in the car on the way there. Even if fire hasn't returned along with his father, it seems to hover in the air around him. Fire's always been a familiar and favorite weapon, but Dean knows that if he ever went to Hell, the fire would be waiting there for him, too.

His thought snags painfully on that _if_ , like a barbed hook.

"We should--" Sam's voice scratches. "We should sedate him. I can raid a clinic. In the meantime try to keep him hydrated and uh, knock him out again if you have to." He holds out his hand and Dean tosses him the keys to the Impala.

Closing his fingers around the keys, Sam meets Dean's eyes, but he doesn't say anything more.

* * *

They get two motel rooms, so one of them can get real rest while the other watches over Dad.

Dean dips in and out of sleep, never staying long. The times when he hears Dad screaming through the thin wall, he's out of bed, wrenching the door open, and there in the next room before he can even remember running outside. The other times, when the screams are inhis own nightmares, he claws awake sweaty with his own breath rasping in his ears.

Late in the second night, well past two, his cellphone goes off while Sam and Dad are asleep in the next room (at least, he hopes they're asleep). It's Missouri, and Dean has to hold the phone away from his ear until she's calmed down somewhat.

She had a dream, she says, and saw Dean sealing his own heart into a box.

Her voice unexpectedly softens when she asks him _how long_ , and he says _ten years_.

"Oh, honey." It's nearly his undoing. Then Missouri's voice goes caustic again, and it's like a shot of bourbon. "Best of luck, Dean. You're going to need it."

* * *

It takes days before Dad's eyes focus, before he says their names, looks around the drab motel room, understands he's no longer in Hell.

It's a week before he can sleep for more than an hour without waking up screaming.

They stay in the motel because they have nowhere else to go, really, and they don't want to make Dad travel until he's stronger.

Dean brings clothes from the Salvation Army because they burned most of Dad's clothes after they burned his body. Dad can eat, sit up in bed, walk around. Sometimes he almost seems like John Winchester, except there are moments when his stare goes vacant, or he shudders and shuts his eyes. They have to be patient then, to gently speak and touch his shoulder, and eventually it stops. When he opens his eyes, his cheeks are wet. He looks from Sam to Dean like he's using their faces to tether him to earth.

* * *

Those first few days, they're still in crisis mode. Dad's body seems to be intact but his mind isn't, and it weakens him. It means putting off what Dean dreads. It's not just the moment when Sam will finally think to ask, although it's not like Sam hasn't figured it out already. But there's a difference between unspoken knowing and having the words actually out there.

In the end, it's not Sam who asks the question; it's Bobby, when he drives Dad's truck out to them later that week, one night of cold misting rain.

He hands the keys to Sam and stares past him to where Dean's standing by the open door of the motel room.

"You could come in. Say hi to him..." Sam begins.

"I could." But Bobby doesn't move; his gaze goes from the door to Sam's face to Dean's, and stops.

"Dean," he breathes finally, dread and anger mixed in his voice; Dean's stomach plunges at the sound of it. "Goddammit, Dean, what did you do?"

It's on the tip of his tongue to say _what are you talking about?_. But Sam's turned to stare at him, and it's far too late to deny anything.

"I got ten years," Dean says. He doesn't mean it come out so defensively, petulant, an excuse.

Then Sam goes past him, shoving Dean roughly even though there's plenty of room to pass, moving so fast Dean gets only a quick glimpse of Sam's face wet with furious tears before the door slams.

* * *

Dean tries to talk to Sam the next day. When he hands Sam his coffee in a paper mug, he gets a stare that makes his blood feel like ice.

"I did what I had to," Dean says, needing that look gone from Sam, that wounded look that goes hard when he looks right at Dean. Leaning against the hood of the Impala, he gropes for more words, but there aren't any that would be enough. He can't quite manage to form them anyway; his throat's dry.

Ten years. He imagines a decade of Sam looking at him as if there's a wall between them. Not as if they're strangers, Christ, never that, but as if Dean's already gone and Sam's never going to forgive him for going.

Sam doesn't join him; he instead puts his back against a pillar of the motel breezeway, looking off at the cars going by on the highway. "I know," he says.

"Look.." He puts his fingers against the hood, and it steadies him. He's still here, and ten years is a long time. Somehow he has to make Sam see that. "I saved Dad."

"Did you?" Sam's gaze snaps to him. "Have you looked at him lately?."

"He's gotten a lot better..."

"He zones out, Dean. He can’t remember where he is. Being in Hell, gosh, I guess that kind of fucks up a person's head!"

Sam's right.

No. No, he's not. He did what he had to do, and Dad's better off this way than he'd be in Hell. Even broken, he's still _Dad_ and he's getting better.

"So, what, you don't want him around because we've got to take care of him?" Dean doesn't mean it to come out that way, accusatory and defensive all at once, and he sees the cruelty of it reflected back in the way Sam's shoulders hunch, pulling away.

"No, Dean. I'm just not sure that what you did was saving him."

Dean’s hands tighten on the edge of the car. He needs Sam to be okay with this. He has to be okay with this. "He’ll get better."

"Yeah, he probably will." Sam nods and takes a sip of coffee, his eyes looking off towards the horizon again.

"It'll take time."

"You don't have much of it."

"I have enough."

"No." Sam finishes his coffee in two swallows, then crumples up the cup. "No, you really don't."

"Ten _years_ ," Dean says. "That’s a long time."

Sam’s face twists into a bitter smile. "Long time. Think that’s what they figured? The guy whose life we saved back there? The ones we _didn’t_ save?"

"Sammy --"

"Dean, how can you possibly think this is okay?"

The anger in Sam's voice is starting to make him angry in turn, and he tries to make himself stop that. "I don't think it's _okay_ ," he bites off. "But you don't have to--"

His brother turns to him – no, turns _on_ him – and his eyes are dry, which is worse than if he'd been crying. "How do you think I should react, Dean? Ten years. Every single time I see you, that's what goes through my head. Ten years and that's it. I'm glad we have Dad back, I am, but man, I don't think I can handle this yet. I don't think I can handle looking at you and knowing you're going to die."

He pushes off the car, takes a step toward Sam. "So don’t look."

Sam’s jaw sets, taut with the effort of staying silent. He turns away, tosses the crushed cup into the trashbin with a vigorous flick of his arm. "I’m gonna go check on Dad," he says, his voice flat, and heads for the door.

Dean can’t sleep that night, and at quarter to three he gives up trying and slips out of the motel room with cellphone and car keys in his hand.

He drives for hours, and dawn finds him in the middle of nothing but fields and woods. A half dozen yards or so off the road is a pile of rotten wood that might have been a small shed once but it's impossible to tell now.

Dean sits with his fingers on the wheel, listening to the utter silence. No traffic goes by him.

He just sits.

Dad’s alive. And pretty soon Sam will be getting up and making Dad’s breakfast, and Dad may or may not be able to spoon the cereal into his mouth for himself, but he’s _alive_.

Dean restarts the engine, grabs a tape without looking and slots it into the deck. _No point asking what's the game_ , it sings to him; _no point asking who's to blame_.

Ten years. There's work to do.

* * *

YEAR ONE

There's always work to do.

Dean tries to find local jobs, sometimes goes farther afield, never more than a few days away at a time. He and Sam settle into an endless loop of shift changes between caring for Dad and hunting. They don't hunt together even when Bobby relieves them and the wall of silence between him and Sam settles onto his shoulders as a dead weight. He tries to lose himself in the rituals and adrenaline and slam bang of hunting, almost convincing himself that it all feels the same as it did before, that the job and the road and the music are enough, as they've always been enough. _If you're gonna die, die with your boots on / If you're gonna try, well, stick around / Gonna cry, just move along / If you're gonna die, you're gonna die..._

A ravener in Wichita, a clutch of redcaps in Oakland; poltergeists and restless dead and inhabiting spirits from Boise to Baton Rouge. Dean studies the news over breakfast, keeps his ears open at late night bars, stops in every so often at Harvelle's Roadhouse when he's at a loss for a lead. There's _always_ work to do.

His first visit to the roadhouse goes a little awkwardly, when Ellen tells him why Jo isn't there. "She said she wanted to be a hunter." She’s not quite looking at him, busy wiping down the bartop with a damp rag; her tone is more resigned than anything else. "I said not under my roof. She said fine, and left."

He bites back the words _I'm sorry_ , can't help feeling he had a part in this.

"She's smart," Dean says. "She'll do all right."

She glances up at him. "I hope so."

It makes it that much harder not to tell her why Sam's not hunting with him, when she asks. He can’t summon up the give-a-damn to make up an elaborate lie, and there’s no way he’s going to bring up Dad, so he just says something vague about Sam being busy somewhere else.

He knows Ellen isn’t buying it when her eyebrows draw down and her hand on the bartop comes to a halt.

There's a short silence that for the life of him he can't break, not even by moving for the door.  
"You take care of yourself, Dean Winchester," she finally says, looking right at him, and then turns back to her work. It's enough to let him start moving.

As he puts his hand against the door, Ellen clears her throat and says, "I'd have done the same in your place," very low, her eyes down on the cloth in her hand.

So she's heard, somehow. Maybe from Bobby. Dean watches her for a moment as she picks up several glasses with one hand, keeps wiping the bartop with the other.

She doesn't look up again.

* * *

The motel’s getting too expensive and Dad’s not well enough to travel much. Sam finds a little apartment with its own entrance, the second floor of a house where the owner is away a lot.

Two bedrooms. Sam claims the one that’s only about the size of a closet, and Dean sets up a cot in Dad’s room for the nights when he shouldn’t be left alone. The only other place to sleep is the futon in the living room, but that's fine with him, he's slept on worse. Furniture gradually starts to accumulate: bookshelves, a low table, a five-year-old television Sam finds at a garage sale. No rug, but blue curtains hang on the windows.

It's the first place Dean can remember living in, since those hazy memories of the house in Lawrence, that looks like _permanent_. And that word, when it comes to him, is more disquieting than it has any right to be.

They hardly see each other most days, and they don't speak much at all, beyond the basics. It becomes routine: Dean returns from a hunt, they exchange a few terse words, and later that day Sam leaves for a hunt of his own. Every shift change, Dean feels the hollow places inside him grow more hollow. But Dad's getting better, slowly. Dean clings to that, pretends not to notice how Sam barely looks at him.

He looks after Dad until Sam returns, and by that time he’s ready with his own next job.

Once when he comes back, there’s a scrape on Sam’s face that wasn’t there when he left and one of the spindly kitchen chairs is broken. The splinters still in Dad’s palms and the empty sedative vial tell him the rest of that story. Fear jabs at him; for weeks after that, Dean doesn't hunt at all.

Bobby comes by a time or three, usually without calling first, and tends to stay until whichever brother is out hunting comes back. Dad’s starting to talk again, and even smile sometimes, and Bobby’s presence seems to help. Dean cooks dinner even when Sam's there because he trusts his own cooking over his brother's. Forks scrape against plates and no one says much.

Afterwards, he washes the dishes while Sam dries. When the water's turned off, the silence between them grows more pronounced. It makes him want to grab Sam by the shoulders and shove him and yell -- at least they could fight the way they used to, easy and loud and natural.

* * *

Tennessee maybe a month or two later, and Dean’s caught out badly by a nixie and too far from the riverbank to keep his footing. He's lost the silver knife he brought to kill it, and the water's just closed over his head for the second time, when suddenly all the weedlike tendrils around his neck and arms spasm and then go limp.

He comes up spluttering, dragging the dead nixie's tendrils away from his throat with one hand and treading water furiously with the other. Jo’s standing on the riverbank with one hand planted on her hip and the other casually holding a crossbow. "Dean Winchester," she drawls. "What brings you here?"

Not missing a beat is a point of pride. "This thing," he says with a grin, holding up a trailing tendril that looks more than ever like some innocuous water weed. "'S been chowing down on local schoolkids. Thought I might see how it liked picking on something its own size."

She laughs, and lets the crossbow drop to swing on a strap over her shoulder as she bends to pick up one end of a fallen branch. It's a moment before he realizes that she's holding it out to him, to help him back to the bank, and he holds up a hand palm-out to ward it off. "No thanks, I'm good."

"You sure? Even with the nixie?"

"Yeah. Thanks." Which is not to say it isn't unwieldy, dragging the nixie's carcass with him through the muddy water and up the bank to dry land, but he manages it. Jo retrieves her silver-tipped arrow from the nixie, and makes a face at the already-corroding shaft. "You want to clean that quick," he tells her. "Nixie blood does a number on metals."

"So I see." She starts to say something else, hesitates, and then says it: "You want a hand burying it?"

 _You want a hand_ , not _you want to give me a hand_. As though he'd made the kill. It's a backhanded apology, or as close as he'll get to one, for interfering with his hunt.

"Sure," he says, more as an acceptance of the apology than because he really needs the help. "You know how to bury one of these?"

"Face down, at least three yards from the water, sprinkled with fresh ashes," Jo recites promptly. "Doesn't have to be too deep."

"Not bad." Dean studies her sidelong. "You’ve been doing your homework."

She shrugs -- and he knows she thinks he can't see how put on that indifference is, but he catches the way she presses her lips together, as if stifling a smile.

He walks her back to her car, a beat-up Ford that last saw better days in 1982.

"Where's Sam?" she asks, stowing her crossbow.

Dean thinks of several things he could say, lies he could think up, excuses. He finally settles on "Buried in research. You know how he gets with that."

Sliding into the driver's seat of her truck, Jo pauses with her fingers holding the key in the ignition. "Well, no, I wouldn't." She turns the engine on. "So. Guess I'll see you around?"

"Guess so," he says, and she drives off.

They run into each other every so often after that, between hunts, when he happens to be in the area. She's got a day job at a bar; it's not a hunter hangout, and that suits him just fine.

One of those nights, over drinks, he finally tells her why he's hunting alone.

He didn't plan on telling her, didn't plan on telling anyone, but it's two in the morning and he's had maybe one too many beers and his shoulder hurts like a mad bastard where the greentooth threw him into that tree and it's been almost three months since his brother last looked him in the face.

The whole story comes out. Trickles out, flat and stale, lifeless; there's almost no emotion left in it.

He doesn't look up until he's done talking, and when he does it's to see Jo staring at him flatly. "You're shitting me."

"You asked, I told you what happened -- "

"No, you have got to be goddamn _shitting_ me. Your brother’s _blaming_ you?" The disbelief is tinged with righteous indignation, verging on outrage.

"It’s not like that," Dean mutters, perversely defensive on Sam's behalf.

"He has no right to do that." Jo leans forward, her eyes meeting his directly, and slams the words down like a judgment. " _No. Right_. You saved your dad's life --"

"Gotta pay for it with mine in ten years."

"Ten _years_ ," she scoffs. "Dean, you guys are _hunters_. You could get killed anytime. Ten years from now, five years, two years, tomorrow for all you know. Who the hell says you'll still be alive in ten years?"

Dean can't stop the crooked grin that twists his mouth at that, and doesn't really try. He raises his half-empty beer bottle to her. "Way to cheer up a guy."

"No, I mean it," Jo insists. "You got your dad back alive out of Hell. And whether you survive the next ten years or not, he's alive _now_. You made the right call, Dean."

The twist of his mouth doesn't even pretend to be a grin this time. "Yeah, well," he says, tipping back the bottle so he won't have to look at her. "Glad someone thinks so."

Bitter or not, it's truer than he wants to admit: he _is_ glad someone thinks so. _You made the right call_.

* * *

It’s so strange, being in the same place this long, returning to the same place after every job. Stranger to find himself getting used to it, the disciplined routine of the hunt interspersed with the more prosaic rhythm of buying inexpensive food, cooking meals, watching TV.

When Sam looks at him, the wall seems thinner than it did before. He cracks a grin while Dean's telling Bobby about his last hunt, which ended with Dean knee-deep in monster guts and mud.

Sam gets a job clerking at a law office. It pays for groceries, and for the rent on the little second-floor apartment. No more credit card scams, they're too risky; Dean spends more time hustling pool, pulls cons on wealthy business travelers, always when he's far from home..

Dean writes in his own journal in the evenings, refining the notes from his solo hunting. On the rare nights when they’re both home, Sam spends most of his time in his room with the door locked. He pauses outside it sometimes, never for long. The closed door's a reminder. This peace they've fallen into only goes so deep. He pushes down the panic that fights to get to the surface, the fear that this will go on for years.

Not that it matters, as long as Sam's safe, Dad's safe.

Dad watches a lot of sports, a lot of old movies, with little joy. His face has grown less hollow over the past six months, and his eyes track steadily again. The hallucinations have stopped, the nightmares are fewer, and when he talks he sounds almost normal.

His sole comment on Dean's newest scar, souvenir of an encounter with a gremlin, is a long silence followed by "Glad to see you're in one piece, son."

Other than that, he never talks about hunting.

He thinks his father is maybe in one piece by now, but it's hard to tell for sure. The way Dad moves, the way he talks or doesn't talk, it's more like a bunch of pieces glued back together. Present and whole, but with visible cracks.

Kind of like how Dean feels, these days.

* * *

They hardly ever had separate rooms as kids. When Sam first went off to college, it took Dean months to get used to falling asleep with no sound in the room but his own breathing.

It’s that memory as much as anything else that makes him glance toward Sam’s door when he comes out of the bathroom, wiping a smear of toothpaste off his cheek. Unusually, Sam’s door is half open, light spilling out.

On impulse, he steps over to rap his knuckles against the thin wood. Sam’s tired voice sounds from the other side of it: "Yeah."

He pushes the door open and there's his brother, seated at a battered desk crammed into half of the tiny space that isn’t taken up by the narrow bed, pool of light from the desk lamp throwing his shadow against the wall. There’s a cramped-looking little window on the far wall, half-open to the night. He thinks the walls might be blue, the paint chipped and in need of a fresh coat, but it's hard to tell because it only shows in patches behind the documents taped or thumbtacked everywhere, almost up to the ceiling.

Diagrams and rough sketches, pages torn out of books, newspaper clippings, hand-written pages of Latin, ancient Greek, other languages Dean would need a few minutes to identify. There are piles of books on the desk, piles stacked _under_ the desk, under the bed. The visible patch of floor is covered with chalk markings, piece of chalk lying nearby.

"Sam..." Dean takes another step into the room, slow, his footsteps too loud. "What --" He swallows, he doesn't even want to ask it, probably already knows the answer, and isn’t sure how to accept it if he's right, or how to take it if he's wrong. "What is all this?"

"Research." Sam doesn't look up, turns over a book with pages like old parchment. "Demons. Robert Johnson. Hell."

The whole room, the whole fucking room. Only the bed's clear – no, there are books lying face down, open, even on that; Sam must do his relaxing in the living room with the mysteries and the television. If he does any relaxing at all, and Dean’s not sure of that.

It's tempting to make a joke, to say _geek-boy_ or _what, did you miss college that much?_ but any words he ever had are lost in the sea of paper, penciled notations, and ancient phrases covering the walls of Sam's room. Feels like he can barely breathe.

Sam still won't look at Dean. "Did you want something?"

Dean swallows in a dry throat, and shakes his head. "Nah. Sorry. I’ll, uh, I’ll just ..." and he backs out of the room without finishing the sentence.

Closing the door in his own face is pretty much redundant. The room’s too full of his curse to leave any space for him.

* * *

It's early December, one of those bleak snowless winter nights that starts at four-thirty in the afternoon and settles in like it's never going to leave, when Dad finally brings up the subject.

Dean's trying for the third time to make a decent sketch of the greentooth -- if this one doesn't work, he's giving up and just writing down the differences between the old woodcut and the real thing. Sam's in his room, reading or already asleep. Dad's watching TV, or at least sitting on the couch facing the TV, which is on but with the sound turned down to a barely audible mutter.

"Sam won't talk about how you got me out of Hell."

Dad's voice makes Dean start; the pencil scratches across the paper, ruining the line of the greentooth's jaw. He raises his head to see his father looking at him steadily, with the muted flickering colors of the television playing over his face.

"Or why you two aren’t speaking," Dad continues. "But I figure we all know." His voice is level, and for a dizzying moment in Dean's head it's five years ago and Dad's about to chew him out over his latest fuckup. Then his gaze slides away, his voice drops to a near-whisper, and the illusion of strength is gone. "How long do you have?"

Everybody keeps _asking_ him that. But it’s Dad, and he’s maybe the only person in the world who’s got a right to ask. Dean shoves down the automatic surge of irritation, looking down at his sketch so he won't have to look at Dad. "Ten years."

Dad draws in a shaky breath and lets it out again, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his shoulders slumped and his head hanging between them. On the TV behind him, Clint Eastwood narrows his eyes and stares keenly into the middle distance. Dad keeps his eyes on the floor. "I didn't want this gift from you, Dean."

"Tough," says Dean, and clenches his teeth to keep from saying more, and to push down the ache in his chest that keeps threatening to expand and consume him.

Worse is the murmur of resentment he's tried to ignore for six months or so now, buried until Dad really started to get better.

"I went to Hell because I couldn't stand to watch you die." Dad's still hunched over; Dean can't see his face. "And now I'll have to anyway." There's a rasp in Dad's voice.

"It's ten years." _Nine and change._ Dean clenches his fingers into the arms of the chair.

Dad raises his head, and his exhausted smile is a terrible thing. "Ten years, that's nothing. Ten years, that's a match, flaring and going out. That's you in diapers one minute and holding a shotgun to your shoulder the next. It's Sam learning his letters one heartbeat and then he's on a bus, going off alone to California. Ten years and then you'll be gone--"

"Gone?" The resolve to say nothing else snaps. Dean gives a mirthless laugh and shoves away from the table. "You mean like you were, Dad? Because you made a bargain to save me and oh yea, dumping a shitload of new responsibility on me before you popped off. 'Sorry, son, have to die now, oh, and by the way you might have to kill your brother. Kay-thanks-bye.'" He's out of the chair, pacing towards the wall and turning back to look at his father.

Dad rubs a hand over his face, and Jesus Christ, he looks old. Dean doesn't remember there being so much gray in his father's hair before. "That's not what I said."

"The fuck it isn't!" Dean comes to a halt so fast he sways. "That's _all_ you said -- if I can't save him I'll have to kill him, and you couldn't even tell me save him from _what_! And don't you dare tell me you don't have all the answers yet because that's bullshit."

"I don't."

"Then _tell me what you know_." Dean takes a step toward the couch, and it feels horribly wrong that he should be able to browbeat his father like this, but he can't make himself stop. "I've been trying to fight this thing blindfolded since you died. I can't do it anymore. So you tell me what you know, Dad." His voice thickens and tries to crack. "You tell me what I'm supposed to do."

For a moment Dad doesn't move. Then he takes a deep breath, picks up the remote control to turn the television off, and looks down, visibly steeling himself.

"Wait," Dean says, and hates the wary hope that rises in Dad’s eyes; his jaw clenches hard enough to make his teeth ache. "Sam needs to hear this too."

The hope’s gone, leaving only wariness. "You might want to hear it first."

"Not this time." He turns away from the couch.

"Dean, I don't think --"

Three quick strides take him to the doorway. "Sammy, get in here!" he shouts down the hall, and turns to take up a position on the other side of the living room, his back to the wall next to the silent TV.

The bedroom door opens and closes; footsteps sound in the hallway and Sam steps in, stopping just inside the room. Pointedly not looking at Dean. "What."

Dean folds his arms across his chest and leans against the wall. "Tell him," he says to Dad, and shuts his mouth.

That gets Sam to look at him, flatly wary. "Tell me what?"

"Dean --" That's all Dad says, possibly because he hears how trapped and angry he sounds.

Sam looks from Dean to Dad and back again, the wariness shading through unease and into alarm. "Tell me _what_ , Dad?"

"Dean, leave the room," Dad says; his voice is hard, but there’s a fraying desperation behind it. And there’s only one reason he’d send Dean out right now, and that’s so he can lie to Sam without getting called on it.

Arms still folded, Dean doesn't move. "No sir."

Sam's voice is louder this time. "Dad.--"

Dad looks from Dean’s face to Sam’s, and finds no help in either. Slowly his shoulders bow as though under an unbearable weight; he closes his eyes, takes a breath, and begins to speak quietly.

About how the demon put his mark on Sam somehow, the night of the fire. How there's other kids with his mark on them, all over the place. How the demon's got a way of communicating with those kids, persuading them to do things. Turning them into something else.

That's what Sam has to be saved from. And if there's no other way ...

Dad doesn’t ever really come to the end of the story, just starts repeating himself. When he realizes he’s doing it he falls silent, and doesn't look at either of them; he watches his hands, rubbing them as though they ache. His fingers keep returning to the spot where his wedding ring used to rest.

The ring's been hanging on a chain around Sam's neck all these months, and Dad hasn't asked for it back.

Dean risks a glance at Sam, and swallows: his face is dead pale, sickened with shock.

"Okay," and the sound of his own voice jolts him, tight and too loud, shattering the silence. "We find the yellow-eyed son of a bitch and kill him, we don't have to worry about anything like that happening to Sam, right?"

Dad nods silently.

"All right," Dean bites off. "Fine. Problem solved."

"Problem _solved_?" Sam stares at him. "In what universe is that _problem solved_?"

"’Cause it means there’s another way out of it," Dean snaps back at him. "It means there’s something else we can do. That’s good news."

"Good news? Dean, what are you --?" Sam breaks off, his eyes widening, and then turns to look at Dad.

The silence registers, and Dad looks up slowly.

"You told him." There’s almost no expression in Sam’s voice; what’s in his face is a touch of wondering insight, that putting-it-all-together look. "In the hospital, before.... You told him all of this."

"Not all of it," Dean mutters. "Not by a long shot."

The look on Dad’s face is one of defeat, of something long dreaded finally coming home. "Sam..."

"You told _Dean_ ," and Sam’s voice is scaling upward into incredulous outrage, "that he might have to _kill_ me."

For a second it looks as though Dad might say something else in defense, in justification; then his head bows again and he’s silent.

A long frozen moment passes, and then Sam turns on his heel and heads for the front door, grabbing his jacket from the coatrack. Dean starts after him, catches the door before it slams shut, and follows him without looking back.

He finds Sam pacing the sidewalk in front of the house.

"He's unbelievable." Every line of his body is tense with furious energy. "I can't believe he told you that. I can't believe he _left_ you with that -- Dean, why didn't you tell me?" It's more a plea than an accusation, as he turns to face him.

"'Cause I didn't know half of it," Dean answers, leaning on the side of the Impala with his hands curled in his jacket pockets against the chill Sam doesn't seem to feel.

"You could've told me what you did know, instead of trying to carry it all yourself --"

"What, I was supposed to put that on you?" He snorts.

Sam stops in front of him, turns to face him squarely. "Don't you think I had a right to know?" he says, low and level.

"Damn straight you did," Dean says back, matching his tone. "That's just it. You had a right to _know_. Not to have a load of crap hints to worry about."

Sam looks away and doesn't say anything, but some of the tension goes out of his shoulders. "Let's go for a drive," he says.

Twenty minutes later they’re at a rest stop overlooking a valley, lights twinkling in the town below. There's a slight, chill wind, nothing unbearable. Dean transfers the beer bottle to his other hand, clenches and unclenches his fingers to warm them.

Sam takes another swallow of beer; he's wearing thin black wool gloves.

"I didn’t know," he says finally. "I wouldn’t have ... god." A nearly-silent huff of breath steams in the air like exhaled smoke. "I didn’t know you were carrying that all this time."

"It’s not gonna happen, Sammy." Flat, uncompromising. "We find the demon, we kill him, end of story."

A short silence falls.

Dean holds the beer bottle by the neck, tapping the base against his thigh. "Dad said you didn't tell him what I did."

"I didn't." Sam's voice is quiet. "I don't think Bobby did, either."

The sound he makes isn't quite a laugh. "Guess there wasn't really any chance he wouldn't figure it out, though."

"Not really." Sam's shoulders rise and fall in an uncomfortable shrug. "I don't know when he did figure it out. But the first couple times you were off hunting solo, he kept asking where you were, and I'd say _away_ , and ... he'd stop asking, like that was an answer. I think --" His throat works, and he looks down. "I think he thought you were already gone."

Dean doesn't say anything for a moment. It's automatic, he does it a lot now, his mind ticks over: _There’s time yet. Nine years_.

"You've got nine years left," Sam says, and the back of Dean's neck prickles. "I'm going to get you out of this."

Dean looks off over the valley. He can smell wood smoke faint on the wind.

There's a _clink_ as Sam throws out his beer bottle, and then they get back in the car to return to Dad.

[Read part 2](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/134075.html#cutid1)

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[Part 3/4](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/134168.html#cutid1)   
[Part 4/4](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/134572.html#cutid1)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean makes a deal, and lives a life.

YEAR TWO

On the anniversary of the day he came back from Hell, Dad doesn’t get out of bed, doesn’t react when they say his name and touch his shoulder. He’s not asleep, his breathing is too fast and shallow for that, but they can’t get him to respond. Dean sits on the bed with him for hours, gets up only because Sam insists Dean take a break.

Around noon, Sam brings in a tray with soup on it. Dean brings in the same soup, reheated, around dinnertime.

The dark worry settles in: maybe this is it. Maybe Dad really will be lost to them this time around. Dean's out of options; it's not like it's something he can fix with a deal. Not like he has anything left to deal with.

He knows Sam's praying, even though he doesn't do it aloud, face buried in his hands as he sits in the chair in the corner of Dad's room while Dean sits on the floor with his back against Dad's bed. He can't pray, he can't do much but watch in the semi-darkness, only a small bedside lamp to break it, grateful Sam's there with him.

It’s maybe ten-thirty when Dad opens his eyes, looks up at each of them before letting out a long deep breath. "All right," he says in a low husky voice. "If I don’t shake this thing I might as well have stayed there." His hand fumbles for Dean’s, grips it, uses it as support to sit up.

Dean hears Sam's long, shaky exhale, echoing his own.

The next few months are like the training when they were teenagers, only in reverse. Dean pushes as hard as he dares, throws back questions Dad should already know the answers to ( _you asked me that this morning, remember?_ ), goads him through exercises before going to sleep. _One more. Good. One more._

* * *

Middle of April and he's just exorcised the ghost of a half-crazy widow in Alabama; it’s two in the afternoon and he's been up for almost thirty hours straight, and feels like he needs sleep more than oxygen. He’s folding up the altar cloth when his cell phone buzzes, and has to fumble it right way around before he can thumb the talk button. "Yeah?"

Unfamiliar female voice, young and trying hard to sound professional: "I’m trying to reach a Mr. Dean Winchester? You were listed as an emergency contact for our employee Sam Win --"

The altar cloth flutters to the floor. "Is he okay?"

"He was complaining of headaches earlier today, and he, he lost consciousness at his desk about twenty minutes ago. They’ve taken him to the emergency room --"

"What hospital?" He’s on his feet and moving even as the secretary says a name and starts to recite a phone number. He cuts her off in mid-digit, saying "Text me the address. I’m out of town, but I’m on my way back. You tell him that, hear me? Tell him I’m coming."

He drives for four hours without a break, fighting off exhaustion with truck-stop coffee and No-Doz and the loudest music he's got. Running on fumes by the time he pulls into the hospital parking lot, he staggers out of the car on legs that don't want to support him, and leans for a moment on the side of the Impala. Takes two deep breaths of the cool evening air to steady himself. Checks to make sure his gun's within easy reach, in case it's a trap.

Finds the visitors’ entrance, heads in fast.

It was a vision, Sam tells him quietly while they’re processing his release from the hospital. He’s still pale, and his voice is low and strained as he gives Dean the details. Some teenagers in Illinois are going to die, an ancient evil they didn't mean to wake up turning on them, unless someone intervenes.

This might be too big for either of them to handle alone.

This time last year they couldn’t have left Dad, not without getting Bobby or somebody to stay with him, but he says that he can cope by himself for a few days and he’ll call them if anything goes wrong.

It’s their first joint hunt in over a year, and it’s damn good to be a team again.

Their second night there, Sam steps out of the motel room to get some ice -- they both took some bad bruises during the fight with the thing.

He's back inside a moment later, with a girl. The top of her head barely reaches the middle of Sam's chest, and she paces, agitated, in their hotel room, making it a point to tell them how she's not at all insane, but she had a nightmare and watched Sam die.

* * *

Her name is Ava, and they can't let her go home. Sam is adamant on that point: she's in danger if she goes home, the demon will be after her, they have to convince her of that. Have to.

When they can't, Sam doesn't bend an inch, just shifts his ground. If they can't talk her out of going home, they follow her. Dean's still arguing as they drive, even as they pull into a parking space on the street opposite her house.

Then the radio dissolves into a gasp of static, and all the lights in the house flicker out and in again, and Dean curses under his breath and throws open the car door. Sam's already ahead of him, running hard for the house, drawing his gun.

There's a man on the floor in a welter of blood, and Ava crouching by his head with her face distorted in a silent scream, staring up at the third figure standing over them both. She doesn't react to their appearance, or to the sound of gunfire. When the demon dissolves into a swirl of black smoke and vanishes, she doesn’t lose the look of bewildered horror on her face, just turns it onto them.

It's hours before Ava says anything, hunched in the back seat of the car with her arms wrapped tight around herself. At the first rest stop Sam asks if she wants coffee, water, anything to eat; she doesn't even shake her head. At the second he just looks at her, and looks away without speaking.

They can't leave her alone, which means Dean doesn't get a chance to talk privately to Sam until she falls asleep just past the state line.

"She didn't mean it, you know."

Sam's gaze goes to Dean, flicks over his shoulder at the sleeping girl, back to him. He doesn't say a word, and the flat line of his mouth is altogether too much like Ava's for comfort.

Dean tries again; he has no idea if it’s true or not, he doesn’t know this girl from a hole in the wall, but it’s the only thing he can think to say that might pull that look out of his brother’s face. "Last thing she said back there. She was in shock or something, that's all. It's not like --"

"She meant it." Sam's voice is flat and calm, almost completely toneless. "She meant every word she said."

A short silence. Dean's thumb taps an uneasy drumbeat against the steering wheel.

 _This is your fault. I should never have come looking for you._

"Then she's an idiot," he says finally.

Despite her cold anger at them, Ava seems to accept that they aren't going to hurt her, that they're the lesser of evils. But when they take her to the roadhouse, ask Ellen if she can stay there for a little while, she can't seem to get away from them fast enough.

* * *

In the next few months, Sam quits his job, and the demon becomes their main focus.

Some of the emptiness leaves Dad's eyes. He starts sitting with them when they pore over his journal and their notebooks, making suggestions.

But Dean's not fooled. It's not a renewed interest in the hunt. Dean sees it, flickering at the corners of his father's eyes -- he's afraid of losing them, and that's the only thing that makes Dad look at his own journals again.

One morning Dean goes to wake up Sam and finds the bed rumpled, room empty. Window's wide open, and there's something dusting the chipped paint of the sill.

He runs his finger through the yellowish powder. His vision does a funny thing, going dark at the edges. All he can see is the windowsill and his finger with the sulfur dust on it and all he can hear for a few seconds is a rushing sound.

Then things snap sharply back into clarity, letting his fear savagely loose with it, and he turns, runs from the room, yelling for his father.

The vision-flash a few hours later sends them to the ghost town Cold Oak, and then everything starts to speed up, events rolling downhill like an avalanche.

* * *

They keep the yellow-eyed fucker from opening the Hellgate. Certain moments from that night burn deep into Dean's memory, too vivid, return to him in dreams years later.

Andy's unsteady smile, as he steps out of the shadows among the gravestones. Ellen and Bobby, blasting the Acheri demons with ironshot. The sound of Ava’s scream of warning, and the rage twisting Sam's blood-streaked face as he lunges for Azazel.

The look on his father’s face when he aims the Colt at the spot between those yellow eyes and pulls the trigger. In that moment, it's every gun Dean's ever seen Dad fire.

Staring down at the body afterwards, the hollow dark shell Azazel had inhabited, used to torment them; Sam at his shoulder, raising his eyes to Dad's face. The others are somewhere behind them, he’s dimly aware, but for a moment it feels like it’s just them.

That’s the moment he wants to keep, to tuck into a photo album and bring out to look at years later. The three of them standing over the demon’s body, the smell of sulfur and ashes in the air and the salt-and-iron taste of his own blood in his mouth, every ache in his body singing. _He got him, he got him, Dad GOT the son of a bitch._

"You did it," Sam says, voice thin with shock.

Dad’s voice is rough and cracking. "I didn't do it alone." His hand trembles and the Colt falls to the grass; he grabs Dean's shoulder, Sam's arm, pulling them fiercely to him. They grab on back, the three of them keeping each other upright until they can manage to stand on their own.

* * *

"So, what now?" Ava says, her voice a little scratchy.

"Now," Sam says, sprinkling more cinnamon on his cappuccino. "You go do whatever you want. Go back to your home. Your job. Have a life."

She stares down into her half-finished mug of hot cocoa. Her eyes flicker up to Dean, then to Sam, then back down to her cocoa. A little half-smile forms on her face. "A life." She looks up again. "Oh, yeah, I remember having a life."

"I hear it's great," Dean says.

"It's all different now, though. I don't have a life. Not the same one I had before. What exactly am I supposed to do with that?"

"Ava," Sam says. "You need to put all this behind you..."

"Put it behind me?" She lets out a bitter laugh. "Oh, sure, if I can stop dreaming about it every night. So I go build a brand new life, huh? As if Brady wasn't brutally murdered right in front of me? Pretend everything's perfectly all right now? Get a new job -- because I lost my old one because of this craziness, thank you very much. New house -- because there's no way I'm going back there. New everything. And then some bizarre...supernatural..." Ava flaps a hand as if she can't describe it so she'll do it with hand gestures, ".... _thing_ comes along and tears it apart again. Nuh-uh. I don't _think_ so, buddy."

Dean doesn't like where this is headed, at all.

Sam's frowning; he hasn't quite gotten it yet. "What will you do then?"

Ava folds her arms and shoots him a look. "What else can I do? That door is open, I can't shut it. Your friend? Ellen? She told me a few things. She was going teach me more, said she would if I stuck around long enough and didn't annoy her too much."

 _Crap._ Dean drops his head down on the coffee shop table, next to his cup of ordinary, bitter brew, no foam, no sugar, definitely no cinnamon or chocolate shavings or sprinkles of any kind.

"I want to learn how to shoot," says Ava.

When Dean lifts his head, Sam's nodding. Dean lets out a groan.

* * *

"What could we say, Dean?" Sam says as they walk back to the car. "I think she's right."

"Not everyone who gets mixed up in some supernatural shit becomes a hunter, Sam. Think of the people we've saved. They didn't become hunters. They didn't ask how to shoot. They went back to their lives."

"Her life is ruined, Dean. And the way she lost her fiancé...maybe it's not a situation where she can just go back."

They reach the car and Dean puts the key in the lock, wrenches open the door. "She's better off without it. Better off if she never..."

He hesitates, his hand on the door, while Sam stands still.

Dean doesn't finish the sentence, just gets in the car.

He's sure Sam's thought, a million times, what if Dad had never started hunting. Dean's thought of it, fleetingly, once or twice, wondered what his own life would be like if he weren't a hunter.

But it's the first time Dean can remember thinking it in such clearly defined terms. Ava's alive, they accomplished that much. She seems like a nice girl. Cute.

But now she feels like failure to him -- someone they couldn't save.

* * *

"No, shift your grip a little higher. More to the left...not there. That gun's gonna kick when you fire, it'll knock you right over if you don't hold it right." Dean's trying to keep the impatience out of his voice. They've been out in the woods for hours with a line of empty beer cans lined up along a fallen trunk.

"Hey!" Ava says, voice sharp. "Mister smart guy, like you were perfect at everything the first time you did it?"

"You want to learn how to shoot, you pay attention," Dean snaps back. He bends over and pulls the Glock out of the duffel bag. "Maybe we should have you practice more with this instead. At least you managed to fire it." He can't keep the annoyance from his voice, rubs his free hand over his face.

The afternoon light's slanting through the trees, shadows going longer. Sam, who's been sitting on a boulder watching, unfolds himself. He gets to his feet and goes over to Dean and Ava. "Dean," he says, a rebuke in his voice. Ever the diplomat.

In answer, Dean puts the Glock away and steps back. "Be my guest," he says.

Dean leans against a nearby maple trunk, folds his arms, and watches while Ava huffs an impatient sigh that ruffles the hair around her face that's fallen loose from her ponytail. As Sam steps in close beside her, she looks up at him and her irritation fades into a wry half-smile.

"Here, try it like this," Sam says, soft-voiced, his fingers adjusting her shoulder, his other hand moving the barrel of the gun. He touches her wrist, moving her left hand just so, and then her right hand, his fingers arranging hers. Ava's head comes up to about the middle of Sam's chest but Dean notices he's not hunching with her, isn't trying to diminish his height the way he does with some people in order not to alarm them.

Dean unfolds his arms and starts paying closer attention, because he knows all Sam's tells and he hasn't seen this particular set, not in a long time. Maybe not since Sarah. He wasn't around for Jessica so he doesn't know how Sam was when that started, but Dean has a small pocket of memory of how Sam looked standing beside her in their Palo Alto apartment, comfortably in place, slightly protective, easy, as if he didn't tower over her. Ava's a whole lot shorter than Jessica but the effect is the same. Ava and Sam fit the same way, at least from the angle Dean's looking.

Then Ava gets the grip just right, holding the shotgun like she's been doing this for years, and Sam says "That's it." When Sam smiles down at her, Dean sees everything he wants for him, right there.

That would be one good thing to come out of all of this, at least.

"Wow, look at the time." Dean pushes himself off the tree trunk and glances at his watch.

Startled, Sam and Ava turn at him. "You have somewhere else to be?" Sam says, forehead crinkling.

"Oh, yeah. Gotta...go see this guy about another gun. Keep working with her, Sam, don't let her leave until she's hit at least one can, okay?"

That was Dad's way, when they were each first learning: you didn't leave, you didn't eat, until you hit one. Dean's dinner got missed only by a few hours. A few years later, Sam didn't do as well and Dean remembers sitting on the damp ground, cold, watching Sam who kept trying and trying well after the stars were out, until Dean could hear Sam's stomach grumbling from way over where he was sitting. He'd slipped a chocolate bar into Sam's hand, told him to eat it quick before Dad came out to check on them.

But Sam became a good shot. And Ava will, too.

There's time yet. Eight years to go.

* * *

YEAR THREE

The ironic thing, Dean thinks later, is that Ash probably had this figured out months ago.

Old Yellow-Eyes had planned a war. An army of demons released from Hell, all ready to follow him and his chosen human general. But the ones in Hell weren't the only ones ready to follow, and the rest of his people already on Earth -- the ones he called his children -- would have been psyched up and ready for the fight.

And then the Hellgate didn't open, and Yellow-Eyes got killed. It only stood to reason they'd be out for revenge; it only stood to reason they'd gather and try again.

If the second battle at the Hellgate teaches them anything, it's that it's possible to kill demons. Not just exorcise them, not just send them back to Hell; kill them.

It teaches the demons that too.

Thirteen demons flee the battlefield that night, all with vengeance still on their minds, all out to punish the world in general and the Winchesters in particular for Azazel's death. And this, maybe even more than the first one, is their job.

There are other hunters at work, occasionally crossing paths with them. But he and Sam are the ones keeping track of the whole thing, sweeping a widening circle around the area, constantly checking in with Dad back home, Bobby at his place, Ellen at hers. If they need more hands on a given job, they find outside help: Quentin, Latimer, a new guy name of Resnick, Jo once or twice. Ava, once -- her first kill. Thirteen demons fled the battlefield that night, and one after another is tracked down and destroyed.

The idea probably builds for months, but it doesn't swim into conscious focus until around the time they finally catch up with the last one. It may be the strongest and nastiest of them all, but in the end it's just another demon. Just another spook, just another monster, just another evil son of a bitch.

Get the right weapon, and pick your line of attack, and it goes down.

Dean loses track of days in that final hunt. Sam doesn't, and that's why he's the one to point out what Dean should have realized earlier: it's after midnight when they kill the last demon, and that makes it officially Dean's thirtieth birthday.

They go to a steakhouse the next night to celebrate, the first time since the beginning that they've ever all seven been together in one place -- himself and Sam, Dad, Bobby, Ava, Ellen, Jo. And it's damn good to have them all together, and all getting along, for a wonder.

And wow. Thirty. Some part of him hadn't expected to live that long. _Getting old_ , he thinks -- and then, before he can stop himself: _well, that won't be a problem for much longer --_

He downs most of a glass of champagne in one gulp, and starts looking for something stronger.

Sometime during the second round of toasts Jo says something -- Dean doesn't remember exactly what it was, later, something about _that's thirteen demons that'll never bother anybody again_.

And as simply as that the idea's _there_ , like an arc light hitting him square in the face, and Sam straightens abruptly in his chair and _looks_ at him and Dean knows he's seen it too. And suddenly he can't wait for this party to hurry the hell up and be over so he can talk to Sammy alone.

And when he follows Sam's glance, he sees Dad looking steadily at both of them. And giving a single firm nod.

* * *

"She's already got what she wants from you." Sam paces the floor, his long legs eating up the width of the kitchen in two and a half strides. "There's no reason for her to come out after a deal she's already got."

"So I'll tell her I want to revisit the deal. Maybe --"

He's already shaking his head. "You know that won't work."

Dean pushes off the wall and steps into his brother's way. "Sammy, what're you thinking."

Sammy comes to a halt, takes a deep breath. "I'll tell her I want to make the deal. Put together a box --"

"No." He can feel every hair on the back of his neck trying to stand up straight. "Not a chance, man."

"I'm not going to go through with it, Dean. But it's got to look like I mean it. You know it's our best chance of luring her into the open. And -- "

He breaks off, and there's a long pause before Dean says "And what?"

Sam looks away.

"And _what_ , Sammy?"

"And she'll believe it." Sam's voice is very low, and taut with control. "She knows what I'd be asking for."

Dean's fists clench, hard enough to drive his nails into his palms. _Don't you dare_ , he thinks incoherently, and he's not sure whether he's addressing his brother or himself. _Don't you dare. Oh, don't you dare._

Sam turns away, as though to pick up pacing again. "We set up the Devil's Trap before we summon her. Get her to exactly the right spot, and --" He brings his hands together in a gesture as of trapping something between them.

"And then we kill it." Dean makes his own hands relax, stretches his fingers to uncramp them.

"It'll still be a fight," Sam warns. "Trapping her won't trap the hounds."

"Gee, a fight? I wonder what that'd be like." He grins at his brother, the sardonic overlay completely failing to hide the growing excitement at the idea.

Excitement, and something more.

 _I could get out of this._

* * *

As it turns out, the hellhounds don't come to the demon's defense until she realizes they're not just planning to send her back to Hell. And by that time it's too late for them to stop it.

Not too late for them to be a serious pain in the ass, but too late to stop it.

Limping back to the car afterwards, half leaning on his brother and half supporting him, Dean isn't sure at first why Sam has stopped walking within sight of the car. Another threat, another trap, _now?_ \-- he tenses, barely feeling the acidic burn of fresh adrenaline in overstressed muscles and nerves. "What?"

Sam's voice is completely toneless. "It's a parking ticket."

The words might as well be in Swahili for all the sense they make, until Dean follows his gaze and sees the ticket tucked under the Impala's wiper.

And somehow that tiny pink scrap of paper is the single most absurd thing he's ever seen in his life, the most cosmically fucked-up punchline ever, and he starts to laugh. And can't stop.

Sam stares at him. "Dean," he says, reproach and question and concern all together.

Dean struggles to swallow, and drags air into his lungs, wincing at the pain in his cracked rib. "We got a parking ticket," he explains earnestly, and then he's off again, staggering over to the car and leaning on it. He barely hears it when Sam says his name again, and again more sharply, because by that time the laughter isn't fun anymore but he still can't stop it. It's hardly even laughter anymore by the time he slides down the side of the car and folds up on the pavement, just ragged broken breath like a series of sobs.

Gradually it tapers off, and he becomes aware that Sam's down on one knee next to him, one hand out as though trying to steady him, not quite touching. "No, I'm good," he wheezes, flapping one hand weakly at his brother. "I'm good. Quit lookin' at me like that, Sasquatch, I'm okay."

* * *

When they tell Dad, he doesn't speak. His fingers clench convulsively around his knee, the knuckles going white.

Even Bobby stares at them with his mouth open a moment before he gathers his wits. "So, it's done," Bobby says, standing next to Dad's chair. "You boys _sure_? You absolutely sure you killed her?" He's peering at them dubiously -- no, make that suspiciously -- from beneath his cap. As if wondering if they had a shared hallucination, if they've finally cracked from the stress.

"It's done," Sam says, glancing at Dean, his voice hard with triumph. "She's dead. Gone."

"We're pretty damned sure," Dean says, surprised when his voice comes out a little shaky.

"Well." Bobby says. "Well." His eyes are a little too bright and he looks away.

There's no sound, no one saying anything, for half a minute, until a rasping sob breaks from Dad, all the more harsh-edged because he's struggling to hold it in; Dean can see him physically fighting against it. He goes over to where Dad's sitting, bends, grips his father's shoulders, feels them go steadier under his touch. Dad's arms go around him and Dean holds on as tight as he can.

* * *

"So what's stopping you?"

"I don't know, man. I just..." Sam looks out the window, and Dean would bet he's completely unaware of the goofy little smile hovering on his face. "It could work, couldn't it?"

"Hell, yeah." Dean eases to a stop at the red light, throws another quick look at his brother. "And it's not like you've got any reason to keep putting it off, anymore."

By the time Sam's head snaps around to look at him, he's nonchalantly studying the road ahead, fingers drumming lightly on the wheel. After a second he glances around, raises his eyebrows in innocence. "What?"

"What are you talking about?"

"What, you think I haven't noticed?"

Sam starts to say something, and stops.

Dean gives him his best serious look. "When we get home from this job, you call her. Got it?"

* * *

The waitress pours coffee, leaves two plates of waffles and bacon, and trips off to the next table. Dean watches her leave, absently appreciating the view, before picking up his fork and digging in. Sam's already halfway through his first waffle, and studying the road map.

"We made pretty good time," he says, gesturing with his fork. "I think we could be home before dark."

"Sounds good," Dean says through a mouthful of waffle. He's a bit distracted; the waitress is bending to talk to another customer, a cute redhead -- not his type, really, too short and skinny, but definitely cute.

The redhead glances over as he thinks the word, and smiles right at him before turning back to the waitress. _Still got it_ , he tells himself smugly.

"... _you_ gonna do next?" Sam's saying, stirring his coffee.

"I'm going to Disneyland," he answers automatically. "I mean, what?"

Sam gives him a dirty look, the kind that means _I'm laughing, but I don't want you to know it._ "Seriously. You should start thinking about that."

Dean chews on that, and on a forkful of bacon. The bacon's a lot tastier. The idea that he can make long-range plans now is slow to process ... possibly because making long-range plans has never really been something he does.

 _Maybe it's time I started._

"Um -- hi." The new voice interrupts his train of thought, and he looks up. It's the redhead, standing over their table with a smile.

Sam looks up and leans back a little, his easy friendly-with-strangers smile coming up to answer hers. "Hi."

She bites her lower lip on one side; the effect is charming. "Okay, um ... this is awkward," she says. "But kind of important. Can I sit down?"

A glance flicks between them, and it's Dean who nods. "Sure," he says, and scoots around on the circular bench to make room. As an afterthought, he pulls the remains of his breakfast over, and starts cutting another bite of waffle with the side of his fork.

"Thanks." She smiles again, and slides into the vacated seat that's now across from both of them. None of the hesitation in her voice and words is there in her posture, in the sureness of her movements, and that's starting to set off a very quiet alarm in the back of Dean's head.

Until she looks directly at him over her folded hands and says his name out loud. "So, Dean? I figured you should know." Her smile's deprecating, apologetic. "I've inherited your contract."

He stops chewing. Under the flavors of maple syrup and butter and crisp fried dough, he can taste something charred. Something bitter.

It's Sam who breaks the silence. "You what."

"I inherited your brother's contract," she repeats patiently. "Took a while for the paperwork to go through after you killed 'Cia -- you would not believe the bureaucracy we have to deal with, I swear -- anyway, she had about half a dozen contracts outstanding, and yours was --"

"No."

"Mm?" The redhead -- the demon -- looks at Sam with wide grey eyes.

"I said no," Sam repeats, hard and implacable. And, to Dean's ears, fraying into desperation on the edges. "It's over."

"Sorry, honey." And she even _sounds_ sorry, genuinely but shallowly, like a sympathetic bartender telling you it's closing time and she'sgonna have to throw you out. "Doesn't work that way."

Dean swallows the half-chewed mess in his mouth, feels it scrape his throat going down. "The fuck it doesn't," he says, and the sound of his own shaking voice scares him; Christ, he sounds like he's about to faint, or bawl like a little kid. " The fuck it doesn't. We killed the bitch."

"Dean, sweetie, you can't just kill any demon that holds a contract on your soul," the redhead chides. Then tilts her head consideringly, and adds in a conscientious tone, "Well, you _can_. I mean, _you_ probably could. I hear you're good at that."

"Yeah, I could kill you without any trouble at all." The sound of it is still all wrong, forced instead of easy, threat masking terror. Under the table, Sam's foot kicks his ankle in warning.

The demon shrugs one shoulder, looking remarkably unconcerned. "You could, but I'm warning you, they'd just send double-o-eight." She grins at his disbelieving stare. "Sorry. Anyway, yeah. You wouldn't gain anything by killing me. It doesn't invalidate your contract; that just goes to _my_ heir. And if you keep it up, well..." That shallowly sympathetic smile again. "It starts to rack up costs."

"Kind of costs?" Dean's throat tightens down even harder, and it's an effort to get the words out. His hands clench on the edge of the table.

She shrugs again. "Depends on the circumstances. Maybe we cut a year or two off the end of your alloted time. Maybe we take back what you bought with your soul. Maybe we take something else." He's not sure whether he imagines her eyes flicking to Sam as she says the words _something else_ , but she's looking straight at him now, smile gone. "Breach of contract with Hell is not something you want to get into, Dean. Seriously."

That charred taste is back in his mouth, stronger. He can't look at Sam.

She unfolds her hands and leans back, her tone going brisk and cheerful again. "Anyway, look -- I don't hate you, Dean. Or you, Sam," she adds, turning to include him. "Really, I owe you. I mean, the crossroads job? That is _such_ a plum position, and I never thought I'd get it, and --" A brilliant smile, eyes sparkling in genuine happiness. "Now I do. And I've got the two of you to thank. So I don't want you to think I'm, you know, out to get you personally. This is just business."

"Really." The word rasps, but it doesn't shake.

"Really." She pauses, shifts in her seat, and does that thing with her lower lip again, catching it in her teeth on one side. It's not nearly as cute this time. "Okay, that's a lie." She grins, and confides: "It's also fun."

Sam starts up from his seat, about to lunge across the table. Dean grabs him by the back of the shirt and hauls him back down, hard enough to rattle the silverware. Across the room, the waitress straightens sharply and turns to look at them; a few of the diner's other customers crane their necks to see what's going on.

The demon's smile goes even more brilliant, and strangely tender. "Oh," she says softly, "the two of you are just _heartbreaking_. I could watch you for hours."

"Get out." Sam's voice is a harsh rasping snarl, his lip curling up over his teeth.

She slides out of the chair smoothly. "You boys take care, now." The smile flashes out at Dean again. "See you in seven years."

* * *

They both stand outside the diner, their breath misting in the cold air. Before they do anything else, Sam calls Bobby, a wild grasp at hope.

"So that's what happened. Is there anything we can..." Sam winces and holds the phone away from his ear. He shoots a helpless look at Dean, then puts the phone back to listen. "Uh-huh," Sam says. "Yeah, Bobby....yeah...yes, _we know_....okay. Uh...Bobby? I'm sorry. I'm really--" Sam snaps the phone shut and tilts his head to one side. "He hung up on me."

Dean looks across the street at his car, spattered with dirty slush. He'll have to get her a bath soon.

He doesn't know how they're going to tell Dad. As they cross the street, he considers suggesting to Sam that they don't. They could lie. No, it wouldn't be a lie, only a refusal to volunteer information.

But it's too late for that. He should've thought of that before he let Sam call Bobby. If they don't tell Dad, Bobby will, and if Bobby ever found out they lied, Bobby would drop-kick both of them into Hell personally. And anyway Dean knows he couldn't keep it up. Years going by with Dad thinking Dean had a life ahead of him, and Dean knowing he didn't. It couldn't be done. It would be an impossible thing.

You'd think by now he could figure out how to live with an impossible thing.

* * *

"No," Dad says, voice flat. "You said she was dead. You said you got her..."

"Inherited contract," Sam repeats, his voice low and quiet. "New demon."

Sam and Dad are seated at the kitchen table. Hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans, Dean leans against the doorframe, halfway in the room, halfway out.

There's a terrible stillness and then Dad shoves back his chair, stands up. Dean jumps, startled, as Dad kicks the chair across the room. It slams into the fridge and tips over. Magnets and sheets of paper rain after it, a shopping list, a bus schedule, recent snapshots of Sam and Dean, ordinary detritus of this life that's more ordinary than Dean can really remember having except for his haziest memories.

"Dad..." Dean starts, his own voice like a stranger's, separate from him. "We're sorry. We thought...we're really sorry." He stops. "I'm sorry."

There's nothing left to do or to say. Dad leans his palms against the counter a moment, shoulders hunched, head down. Then he walks over and picks up the chair, begins gathering up the fallen papers.

It's after that Dean sees Dad taking notes in his journal. He'd stopped after Cold Oak, after Sam almost got killed. But this wasn't like when he'd returned to it before then. That had been half-hearted, and only when Sam and Dean were discussing a hunt.

Now the journal's become a part of Dad again, never far out of reach, and he develops a habit of grabbing it at odd moments and scribbling in it.

* * *

They're going seventy in a sixty-mile an hour zone when Sam says, "I have to break up with Ava."

Dean swerves, and the driver of the van next to the Impala flips up his middle finger. Dean slows, then pulls the Impala onto the shoulder of the highway. He stops and turns off the engine. ""No. Okay? No. You are not doing this."

"What, because you say so?"

"You're goddamn right because I say so."

Morning traffic rushes past, a semi blowing its horn, and Sam flinches. "Dean, I'm not gonna just --"

"You're not gonna just what, Sam? Have a life? Be happy?"

"Happy." A bitter almost-laugh. "Right, happy." Sam looks out the window, at the electrical towers and the woods beyond. Then he turns back to Dean. "Three years gone and we're back at square one, and I'm supposed to go have a _life_ while your time's running out."

"Yeah." Dean folds his arms. "That's what you're supposed to do."

Sam curses under his breath.

"Sammy, _think_ a minute. What if," and it's hard to say it aloud, but he makes himself finish the sentence: "what if I don't get out of this deal? What if at the end of all this, I'm gone?"

That sentence he can't finish aloud: _...and you're alone?_

"That's not gonna happen." Sam's jaw sets. "I'm going to get you out of this."

"Fine, great, do that. But you can have a life while you're doing it. Look, she's a hunter too, she'll understand. A hell of a lot better than she will if you cut her off now."

"Dean --"

"Sammy, I got seven years left of this. Whether or not you get me out of the deal, I don't wanna spend that whole time being the only thing you get to think about. I don't wanna be the thing that keeps you from getting the life you want. _Whether or not_ , you understand me?"

Sam just looks at him silently, mouth tight, eyes damp.

"Just -- it's what you wanted. It's what you were gonna do when you thought things were okay. So go through with it, will you?" He leans forward, lowers his voice. "Marry the girl."

[Read part 3](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/134168.html#cutid1)   


 

[Part 1/4](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/133763.html#cutid1)   
[Part 2/4](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/134075.html#cutid1)   
[Part 3/4](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/134168.html#cutid1)   
[Part 4/4](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/134572.html#cutid1)


	3. A Thin Chain of Next Moments (3/4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean makes a deal, and lives a life.

YEAR FOUR

Dean tries a third time to fasten the cuff links, and finally manages it.

 _The things I do for you, Sammy._ The monkey suit's possibly the least comfortable thing he's ever worn, including the actual monkey suit (well, gorilla suit) that time they had to sneak onto the fairground in Iowa. He doesn't need the mirror to know he looks ridiculous, he _feels_ ridiculous, and the only reason he's putting up with this at all is he's got a job to do as part of the ceremony. It's kind of a ridiculous job, too -- there's no reason Sammy can't keep track of the rings by himself.

Compulsively, Dean checks his pockets. Yup, both right there -- the band with the diamond, and the simpler unadorned band that until last week was hanging on a chain around Sam's neck, until Dad finally asked for it back. And then turned right around and gave it to Ava to give Sam. Kind of thing chicks get misty-eyed over.

With a careful look over his shoulder to make sure no one else can see him from here, Dean checks his _other_ pockets: the one with the gun and the one with the flask of holy water. Yup, he's good. And Bobby's probably finished setting the wards by now.

God help _any_ evil sonofabitch that tries wrecking _this_ wedding.

Meanwhile, there's a buffet table, a wet bar, and a handful of bridesmaids to talk out of their phone numbers.

Life is good.

* * *

For a few months after the wedding, the second-floor apartment is pretty crowded; the hunt for a bigger place to live is taking longer than they hoped.

Ava works one temp secretarial position after another, brings in enough to start saving toward a house. Sam goes back to working as a law clerk; he isn't looking for a promotion, and doesn't get one.

It's only day jobs, after all. The real job is the hunt, and they all know it.

Dean and Ava are reshelving books one Saturday morning, after a successful hunt the night before; the research to ID the monster got pretty extensive, scattered books over half the living room, and this is the first chance they've had to put anything away. Dean's thinking about how weird it is that they even own this many books, or actual bookcases to keep them in. He's never gonna get used to not being able to load everything they own into two cars.

"Hang on," Ava says over her shoulder, "leave that one out, Sam's still using it."

He blinks down at the book in his hand, and then up at her. "What for?"

She turns to give him a don't-be-a-dummy look, amused and sardonic. "What else?"

 _...Dammit, Sam._ Dean bends to put the book back down on the coffee table, slumps back onto the couch. "He's obsessed," he mutters.

"Yeah, pretty much," Ava agrees. "Hand me that other one?"

He reaches for the heavy black volume she's pointing to, and pauses before handing it to her. "You're okay with this?"

Her eyebrows flick upward. "With what, putting books away? Uh, yeah, I think I can handle it." She reaches to take the black book.

He holds on to it. "Not the books."

Ava drops her hand and faces him with a flat measuring look. "You wanna have this conversation now, Dean?"

"You got a better time in mind?" It's meant to be flippant, but comes out serious.

She gives a small sigh, and nods. "Okay," she says. "Yes, Sam's obsessed with finding a way to save you from this deal. And no, I don't have a problem with it." She folds her arms and leans one shoulder against the bookcase as she speaks. "I'm not gonna say it doesn't get a little scary sometimes, but ... scary's kind of part of the deal, isn't it? And, okay, you know -- some women have husbands who're obsessed with their cars, or, or the World Series. At least this is something worth getting a little obsessed over."

Dean stares at her. "Oh, don't _you_ start," he says.

"What?" Ava's hands fly up in an exasperated gesture. "He loves you, of course he wants to save you. I don't want him to quit. He wouldn't be Sam if he quit. Also, hello, _I_ don't want you to die _either_ , Dean."

That throws him; for a second or two he's completely off-balance, and it probably shows. Of all the things he might have expected her to say, that wasn't on the list.

Much less sharply, she adds: "And not just 'cause of what it'd do to Sam. You're a good person, Dean, and I like you, and you don't deserve to die."

If it were Sammy starting to talk like this, he could deflect it with a crack about chick flick moments or group hugs; if it were Dad or Bobby, he could hunch his shoulders and wait for it to be over. But it's Ava, and he's reduced to staring at her with no idea what to say.

"So yeah," she finishes. "I'm okay with it."

She reaches out again for the book he's forgotten he was holding, tugs it out of his hand, and turns to slide it firmly onto the shelf. "There's one that fell down under the couch, can you reach it?"

"...Yeah," he says, and hastily starts to get to his feet. "Yeah, no problem."

He sneaks a sidelong glance at her while he's on his knees, stretching one arm under the couch and batting at the book with his fingertips. She isn’t showing yet; Sam said it'll be another month or two before she does, and then another five or six months of waiting.

As always, calculating time in his head makes him think of the bigger timescale. Getting smaller all the time.

Six years to go.

* * *

YEAR FIVE

Dean's looking at the newspaper but has no idea, really, what the lines of text say. It's a mere reflex that makes him turn to the obits. Dad's gone off hunting for more caffeine.

He slumps in his chair and glances at his watch.

There's a footstep on the linoleum and Dean flings the paper aside. He's on his feet immediately.

"Sam? How's Ava, how's..."

"Ava's fine." Sam looks dazed. "Just fine, and uhhhh...we...it's a girl." A smile breaks over his face. "A girl," he says again, like he's savoring the words, trying them out. He inhales shakily, and then bends over, his hands on his knees. "Oh god. Oh, god, Dean, I'm a _father_."

"Whoa, Sammy, take it easy." Dean's not sure what else to do, so he gingerly pats his brother on the back.

"Yeah, I'm, uh, fine." Sam lowers his head, takes a long deep breath, and straightens up. "Just, it's a little, um. Wow."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll bet it is. Nice going, bro." Dean has to swallow hard to keep whatever is swelling in his chest from getting out and embarrassing him, but it's too late. All he can do is stand there in the hospital corridor freakin' _beaming_ at Sam, who is smiling right back. They must look like idiots.

For once, Dean really doesn't care.

A few hours later, they put his niece in his arms for the first time. He looks down into her tiny face and all he can think is that he won't see her sixth birthday.

But that's okay, too. That's okay because then Dean hands her to Dad, and Sam's saying "Her name's Mary," and for the first time since John Winchester came back out of Hell, all the cracks in him are gone.

And watching him, some crack in Dean is gone too, whole again, even if it's just for this moment. It's like there's a tiny bubble of silence around him, just him, weirdly peaceful: it was worth it. It has to be. Five years left, hellfire waiting for him, screw it all, it's worth it.

 _Made the right call._

* * *

He gets a job at a garage fixing cars and there's something satisfying about it in a different way than hunting. To take something that doesn't work and make it whole again, to get to poke around what makes a powerful machine go. The other guys don't mind if he blasts Zeppelin loud on the boombox while he works. There are grease stains on his hands more frequently than there are blood stains, but he keeps his ears open, checks the obits and discussion boards. The darkness is still out there and he feels aware of it even on the days when he doesn't hunt. He stands in the sunlight and pops the tab on a soda can and watches Sam's little girl get bigger, and the hunt is a quiet hum in the back of his head that won't go away.

* * *

The building's at the end of a dead end street on the bad side of town, the kind of place with graffiti all over the walls and the vacant lot next door overgrown into a wilderness. Isolated, poorly lit, and at the moment, the location of a nest of goblins.

In the residual light of dusk he first sees her: black shirt, jeans, red jacket, long black hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail. Graceful, practiced movements.

"Freeze! Police!" Her voice is clear and sharp, a little husky at the edges and a whole lot sexy, but never mind that now. He hears her quick intake of breath; yep, she's noticing now that they're not human.

One of the goblins rushes her, hissing, teeth bared.

Dean steps into the room and fires. The thing explodes in a gooey mess of goblin bits and blood. She gets splattered, but doesn't even flinch. When another one rushes her she fires, gets it in two shots.

Dean takes out the other four, then steps over goblin guts towards her. "Hey, are you--"

"Stay where you are," she says, and holds her gun on him. There's a badge clipped to her belt, in plain view.

"Oh, hey, sweetheart, watch where you're pointing that thing."

"Put. The shotgun. Down."

He laughs. "Huh. Shouldn't you be saying something more along the lines of 'thanks, mister, for saving my life'?"

"Shut your fucking mouth and put the gun down."

"Right, okay." He drops the gun.

"Kick it over here."

He does.

Keeping her gun trained on him, she unclips the badge andshows it to him. "Jill Hernandez, homicide." She puts the badge back in place, then waves the gun at him. "ID. Now."

He reaches slowly into his pocket and takes out his wallet, pulls out the fake laminated ID and tosses it to her. "Peter Grant."

She catches it, then cocks her head, studying him.

"Aren't you curious what those things were?"

"Yes. You know something about the killings?"

"You could say that." He inches forwards, calculating how to take her down without hurting her.

"Tell me what you know." She gestures with his gun and he stops.

"Sure. They were all killed by goblins."

She puts her head back and barks a quick, sharp laugh. "Goblins."

"I'm telling you. Goblins." He shrugs.

She rolls her eyes. "Why do I get all the nut jobs? We'll finish this down at the station."

"Are you arresting me?"

"Not yet."

He could try to disarm her, but there's nothing they can charge him with, and he's got a license for his gun under the name of Peter Grant. The name is clean, unless he resists arrest.

They let him go close to dawn. As he's walking out of the station, gulping down the last swallows of coffee grown cold, a voice stops him.

"Mr. Grant?"

He crumples up the cup and tosses it into the nearest trash can, the one just inside the door. The station's all scuffed, old wood, benches, faded linoleum and tired fluorescent lights. Jill Hernandez looks damn good for someone who's been awake all night.

Dean considers saying something snide, but instead he just answers, "You need something else?"

"Those things...." She folds her arms over her chest. "Outside." Her chin nods towards the door.

When he opens it for her, she slides him a look as she steps past him, suspicious, almost.

The air is sharp and cool, the light pale, streets half-empty. They go stand at the base of the station steps. "They were really goblins?"

"Why does it matter?"

"There are six people dead."

"Yeah, they were really goblins."

"You...uh...deal with things like that often?" She bites her lip, and it's one of the most adorable things he's seen in years.

"On occasion."

Her forehead crinkles, and he can see the questions she wants to ask him, but doesn't because it would make her feel foolish, and maybe even encourage him too much.

"I've got a few other unexplained homicides in my files," she says slowly. "You hungry?"

"Depends. You buying?"

"There's a coffee shop down the street that makes the best pancakes in the county."

"You're on."

* * *

A week later she calls him to ask for his help to solve a string of disembowelments. They track and kill the creature together.

A week after that, he's on the police payroll as a consultant.

Two weeks after that he tells her his real name and takes her out to eat at a nice place, the kind where he has to wear a tie. She shows up in a little red dress and killer heels, and he notices she has fantastic legs -- usually she wears slacks so this is the first time he's really had the chance to notice.

He tells himself not to let it happen, not to go there.

He tells himself that.

But it happens anyway.

* * *

YEAR SIX

They both have scars, and tell each other the stories, twined in the sheets of her bed. Bullet wounds, knife punctures, wendigos, skinwalkers, pale inexplicable marks from being torn apart from the inside out, car accidents, burns. Dean chuckles with her head against his chest and jokes that he's going to start keeping score. They bet on it, and she starts counting on her fingers, grinning.

"I win, Winchester."

"No way."

"Druggie that stabbed me last June. That makes ten for me. Nine for you."

"Crap."

"Eggs over easy, and I like my orange juice fresh-squeezed."

* * *

They've been doing this thing they do for about two months. He's just finishing a job, watching flames devour scraps of old cloth, decayed flesh, dry bone, when he gets the phone call.

He barely remembers the drive across town. Dean walks down the hospital corridor, feeling like his head's not quite attached to his body, trying to forget the sound of a heart monitor's steady beep becoming a high steady whine.

He's always had nightmares of aimlessly wandering hospital corridors, shouting at people who never respond.

He stops a few yards from her door, suddenly conscious that his jeans have weird stains on the knees and his hands are still covered with the residue of the job. He wipes his palms on the thighs of his jeans and huffs out a breath before going in.

She's lying in the bed, tubes running out of her arms, connecting her to an IV, to the heart and BP monitor. Jill's not a small woman, she's almost as tall as he is, but right now she looks tiny. She looks the way she must have looked when she was a child.

She turns her head and a slow smile spreads over her face. "Hey. You're here," she says, like she didn't think he would be.

"Hi." He stands a few feet from the bed, feeling like an idiot, wondering if he should take off his jacket, decides to leave it on. "You uh...you okay?"

"Yeah. Damn bullet missed my kidneys, thank God." She shifts in the bed, trying to push herself up more, winces. "Stupid punk kid, barely even knew how to fire a gun, got lucky."

As she tells him what happened, the cadence of what she says is familiar, if not the words. It's never something you really think you should be afraid of that gets you.

He stares at the pulse beating at her throat, at the surgical tape on her arm holding the IV needle in place, and can't hear what she's saying anymore.

"Hey, hey," she says, and waits until he focuses again. "You look like you're gonna barf."

He takes her hand, squeezes it, and she squeezes back. Then he puts his head down on the blanket, cheek up against the warm curve of her hip. He feels her fingers dig into his hair and rest there against his head.

They sit like that without talking for a long time, while her heart monitor beeps steadily.

* * *

He hasn't met her family, and she hasn't met Sam or Dad. He hasn't even told them about her yet. Dean puts away the groceries he got for her, listens to her laughing over the phone in the other room, and feels like he's standing at the edge of a cliff.

The idea of losing her isn't the worst of what frightens him. Learning that losing her would frighten him is definitely news, but he can take worry. He's done worry all his life.

She'd believe him, if he told her: it isn't cancer or AIDS, he’s just hellbound. Literally.

It's really a math problem. A question of numbers. Subtraction. He has four years left. Dean's marked, spoken for, and his life's a shitstorm.

No, what terrifies him the most is knowing he has the power to pull the joy out of her eyes.

* * *

Considering that he's never broken up with anyone before, it turns out to be a simple enough thing to do.

Especially since he doesn't directly, y'know, break up with her.

He waits until she's feeling better, and they start going to parties again. He starts flirting too much, says things cruder than usual (and Dean can just about see Sam's disapproving frown, hear a furious _what the hell were you thinking?_ ). Drinks a lot. Far too easy to become the stereotype of what a number of her friends think he is, what he knows he sometimes seems to be: a rootless womanizer, a slacker, a slob.

Her wound heals into a long, thin scar, pale against her dark skin. He wonders how much more it'll take to make her angry enough. Turns out making out with one of her friends is enough to push her over. That, and laughing about it when Jill catches them.

Dean stands unmoving while she curses him out in English and Spanish. He expects her to slap him.

She doesn't.

Instead, she punches him, a quick jab into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him and _fuck_ , she's strong, he'd forgotten she was that strong.

"Get out," she says, her eyes dry and frightening.

He does.

And it's over. Like that, it's over.

* * *

YEAR SEVEN

A hunt every night, sometimes two if he can find them. Sam, Ava and Dad start to remark on the circles under his eyes.

"Dude, you need to take it easy." Sam frowns, bandaging the nasty scrape along Dean's arm.

Dean doesn't say anything. He's got an old song stuck in his head, something about _memories always start 'round midnight..._

Four years left. No, three.

The days are slipping through his fingers, too fast, it's all too fast.

* * *

YEAR EIGHT

"Sam!"

"Dean, it's three in the morning here, what are you..."

"Need a little bit of advice, little brother."

"What's that noise? Are you in the middle of a _hunt_?"

"Actually, I am...fighting this...oh, goddamn, I can't even identify it. What do you make of this?"

"Video's a little fuzzy, Dean...oh. Oh, okay, I see it. Holy shit."

"Got a Latin incantation to fix _that_?"

"Give me a second ... Ava, hand me that book -- no, the other one, next to the -- yeah, thanks. Okay. Dean, repeat after me, exactly as I say..."

* * *

"Jesus, Sam, where are you?"

"Calcutta."

"Find anything?"

"A scroll, it's old. I'll have to hire someone to translate it."

"How're Ava and Mary?"

"Having a blast. We're heading over to London next, some guy who used to be a curator at the British Museum has a text that might help. Says he knows something about demons, although he says vampires are his specialty. How's Dad?"

"He's good, Sam."

"Okay, gotta go. I'll call in a few days."

* * *

"Listen, Sammy, something I think you should know about. Couple of nights ago, I ... I woke up in the middle of the night and Dad was gone. Left his cellphone."

"Jesus, Dean -- "

"No, no, it’s okay. He’s back. He drove up right when I was about to call you. Said he had a nightmare, a bad one, and needed some air."

"...Don’t scare me like that."

"Sorry."

"Is he okay?"

"Says he is, but you know what Dad’s like. But he's been doing so great the last few years, right? I thought he wouldn't..."

"Did you ask him what it was about?"

"..."

"I couldn't hear you, Dean."

"I said, yes, I asked him."

"Well, what did he say?"

"He said it was about me."

"Oh."

"He said...because he was thinking, as he fell asleep, how there's only two years left."

"Dean, listen, we're in Romania and I might have something, it's an old scroll that..."

"Sam..."

"And the guy who's selling it, he says he's heard this legend, that if you..."

"Sam!"

"What."

"I know how hard you're working on this, Sam. You don't have to tell me. Okay?"

"I just wanted you to know. There's still time, Dean."

"Yeah. Say hi to Ava and give Mare a hug for me."

* * *

"Shtriga. Just like the one that came for me."

"Fuck."

"It came for my _daughter_ , Dean."

"Take a deep breath, Sam. She's okay, Ava's okay..."

"I should've been there, but I went to the next village on a lead."

"I said _breathe_ , dammit."

"Yeah. Okay."

"Look, Ava was there, right? She knows by now how to handle things like this."

"She said she shot it six times. Scared it off, didn't kill it. She couldn't let it feed."

"So you'll get your shit together, you'll go hunt it, you'll kill it."

"It's been so long."

"I know."

"It really, it just makes me think, y'know?"

"About what?"

"About how Dad. How the _fuck_ did he bear it, Dean?"

"You kill that thing, you pack up the family, you come home. Got it?"

"But I have to..."

"You want to do something for me, Sam, you'll come home."

[Read part 4](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/134572.html#cutid1)

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[Part 2/4](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/134075.html#cutid1)   
[Part 3/4](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/134168.html#cutid1)   
[Part 4/4](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/134572.html#cutid1)


	4. A Thin Chain of Next Moments (4/4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean makes a deal, and lives a life.

YEAR NINE

Dean spends a month on the road while Sam’s wrapping things up in Europe. No specific hunting job, though he brings the arsenal along as a matter of course, just a road trip. Looking people up: _hey, I’m in your neighborhood, how’ve you been?_

He doesn’t think too hard about why he’s doing this, just turns up the music a little louder. _Hail, hail to the good times / 'Cause rock has got the right of way / We ain't no legend, ain't no cause / We're just livin' for today..._

Utah is Deacon, happy to see him; getting up there in years, starting to think about retiring. Stands him a round of drinks, asks after Sam and Dad, gets him telling old hunt stories.

Indiana is Lisa Braeden, more startled to see him than anything else, but cautiously pleased. She’s got a kid, a son named Ben, about fifteen years old. Dean does the math, and wonders, but can’t make himself ask.

Kansas is Missouri, who sits him down at her kitchen table and gives him oatmeal cookies, and doesn’t ask him a single question in two hours of conversation, and doesn’t smile when she says goodbye.

Nebraska is Harvelle’s Roadhouse, where Ash buys him a PBR and looks mournful but spares Dean any commentary on the situation. He knows Ash has been running research for Sam -- some weird computer programming shit that analyzes arcane texts or something.

Ellen runs quiet interference between him and the regulars.When it's time for him to go, Ash sniffs hard and stares at the ceiling while Ellen puts her arms around Dean and kisses him on the cheek.

South Dakota is Singer’s Salvage Yard. For Bobby he calls ahead, both to make sure he’s there and to give him a chance to tell him not to come. Bobby tells him not to be an idiot. When Dean arrives, he’s a little unsettled by how tired Bobby looks, and tries to ignore the empty space on the table where some piece of research has been hastily cleared away.

Ron Resnick in Wisconsin, Jim Daw in Illinois, Larry Foster in Iowa; it’s bizarre, he thinks sometimes, that he’s got this many friends still alive.

There are dead friends’ graves he could visit, too damn many of those, but he doesn’t. The only grave he goes to is his mother’s, and he doesn’t think too hard about the why of that either.

Sometime since this time last year, his mind stopped counting the remaining time in years and started counting it in months.

 _For those about to rock,_ the speakers sing, _we salute you_.

Tennessee, the last stop before home, is Jo. The bar where she works isn’t too crowded tonight, and the workload is light enough that she can take a few minutes out of her shift to sit and have a drink with friends when they come in.

"Claws out to here," Jo's laughing, gesturing an improbable distance away from her outstretched fingers, "and you would not believe how bad that thing stank."

" _I_ would," says Alan cheerfully as he sets down a bottle in front of Dean, another in front of Jo, and sits down next to her with his own.

Jo elbows him in the ribs, affectionately. "Well yeah, you were there."

"I was. And I did what any red-blooded American man would do on seeing a beautiful woman fighting for her life against a hideous stink monster." Alan takes a swallow of beer, and grins. "I took pictures. Very exciting."

Dean snorts, but he's grinning too. It’s shaping up to be a pretty good night. The company’s good, the beer’s cold, and the digital jukebox is playing something loud and defiant: _And I ain't in it for the power / And I ain't in it for my health / I ain't in it for the glory of anything at all / And I sure ain't in it for the wealth / But I'm in it till it's over and I just won't stop / If you want to get it done, you got to do it yourself..._ Meat Loaf’s usually a guilty pleasure at best, but tonight it sounds right.

"You probably saved my ass with that flash," Jo tells Alan, very matter-of-fact. "You know that, right?"

"Well, I'm very fond of your ass," says Alan reasonably. She laughs, and elbows him again.

Hours later, when Alan’s up getting the next (fifth? sixth?) round, Dean finds himself staring moodily at the reddish light reflecting off one of the empty bottles. Jo’s gone quiet, toying with a pretzel stick, clearly with no intention of eating it.

"Hey," he says abruptly. "Ask you something?"

"Yeah?" Her glance is cool and casual, and brief.

"You still think I made the right call?"

Jo’s silent for a moment, turning the pretzel stick in her fingers. Finally, in a cool dry tone unnervingly like her mother’s, she says "I’m not the one you need to be asking that, Dean."

Even in the bar's dim light Dean can see it: there are lines around her eyes and an old scar down her left cheekbone, and for a moment he's almost sure there are threads of gray in her short-cropped hair. _How the hell did it get so late so fast?_

* * *

Mary frowns in concentration at the sheet of yellow construction paper, slowly covering it with swooping scribbles of alternating blue and purple crayon.

"How you doin' there, munchkin?" Dean sits down on the edge of the waiting-room chair, and leans forward with elbows on his knees.

"I'm making a picture for the baby." She puts down the blue crayon and picks up the purple one again.

"Look at that. Hasn't even been born yet and he's already got his first birthday present." Dean grins, and ruffles her hair.

She tolerates it for a moment, then gives a little shake of her head as though to dislodge a fly and continues coloring. "Can you draw his name? When I'm finished?"

"Sure."

She puts down the purple crayon, and reaches for the red one.

He watches Mary in silence for another few seconds. The straight brown hair that falls into her eyes could be from either of her parents, but the studious little frown wrinkle between her eyebrows is exactly Sam's.

"You gonna be a good big sister, Mare?" he asks, studying her down-turned profile. "Take care of your baby brother?"

She nods confidently, without looking up from her drawing. "Uh-huh."

"That's my best girl."

* * *

Little James (he's already Jimmy by now) is just starting to sleep through the night, an advantage offset somewhat by the fact that Mary is just starting to argue about her own bedtime -- especially when Uncle Dean is over for dinner.

Even in summer, the evenings aren't long enough. "Love to stick around," Dean says, pushing back his chair with half his after-dinner coffee unfinished, "but I got a haunting in the next county, and I gotta get going if I want to get there before dark." Ava asks what kind of haunting, in semi-professional curiosity, and the ensuing conversation carries them through clearing the table.

On impulse, as he's shrugging into his jacket, Dean turns to Sam and says "Wanna come with?"

Five hours and one cleansing ritual later, they're walking back to the car. Sam's brushing uselessly at the stinking slime on his shirt and making wordless noises of frustration. Dean, with cobwebs in his hair and more of that same gunk all over his shoes, is in no position to make fun of him.

"Okay," Sam finally says, "what kind of move was that?"

"Which, the one where I cleverly distracted Casper, or the one where my amazing footwork saved both of our asses?"

"I mean the one where you waved your arms in the air and yelled insults at the ghost to get it to chase you." Sam pulls a long stretch of cobweb, dripping with ectoplasm, from his sleeve, and makes a face at it before chucking it in the bushes.

"Oh, _that_ move." Hitching the strap of the duffel bag higher on his shoulder, Dean smirks. "Yeah, worked pretty good, didn't it?"

Sam makes a small choked noise. "Oh, yeah, it worked great, except it pissed the spirit off so much it almost overshot the trap."

"It worked about as well as the other twenty times we've used that move." It was an old technique of Dad's, one that always made Pastor Jim sigh heavily and Bobby mutter things under his breath.

"Can we find someplace to get cleaned off? Ava's not gonna let me back in the house like this."

Dean makes a rude noise. "Man, you are so whipped."

Sam glares at him sourly. "Jerk."

"Bitch," Dean responds agreeably. He opens the car door and slides in behind the wheel, wincing a little at the thought of gunk getting on the upholstery.

"Was kind of fun, though," Sam says, after a while.

"Yeah."

Neither of them says the words hanging between them: _for old times' sake._

* * *

YEAR TEN

"You're giving up?" Sam's shouting, heedless that he might wake up the kids. He leans back in his chair, folds his arms, and rolls his eyes, and for a moment it's a decade ago. "God, I can't believe this." He slaps another sheet of paper covered with his neat handwriting down on the table. "There are things we haven't tried yet." He drops that piece of paper and grabs another one. "This ritual. Or this one. What the fuck did I do all that traveling and research for?"

Dad's sitting with his elbows on the table, his forehead resting in his hands.

"Deal's a deal," Dean says flatly.

"Bullshit. We don't have to play by their rules."

"It's done, Sam."

If Ava's hearing any of the argument, she's giving no sign, staying tactfully upstairs. Dean imagines Ava crouched in her bathrobe in the darkness, clutching the railings as she eavesdrops, because that's something Ava would do.

She knows Dean's leaving in the morning. She’s known what's been coming for years. That’s probably why she's made such a point to take care that little Jim knows Dean's name, why she's asked Dean to babysit Mary more frequently in the past year or so. It's almost like she's trying to imprint him on her kids.

Or maybe it's the other way around.

"You could hide," Sam’s saying, fiercely. "Buy some time. Salt rings, goofer dust--"

"That's not how it works. It'll find me. No matter how far I run."

The papers crumple in Sam's big hand. Then he leans forward and says, low, "I could offer myself in your place."

Dean slams one hand palm down on the table. " _No_. Jesus, Sammy, don’t even joke about that –"

"I’m serious --"

"So am I. Not an option."

"Goddamn it, Dean --"

"Stop." Dad says it quiet but he might as well have thundered out the word.

The house is so still Dean hears the kitchen clock tick, hears the crickets outside the window.

"Last year," Dad says, lowering his hands. "Last year, I went out to a crossroads."

Sam inhales sharply.

"Wasn't the first time I'd gone to one in the past ten years," Dad goes on, and Dean doesn't want to hear this, doesn't want to think about this. He feels like he can't breathe; but a part of him already _knew_ , knew it already that night last year, from the moment Dad stepped out of the car. _Had a nightmare_.

"Those other times," Dad goes on, his voice level and calm, "those other times I'd get there and I couldn't dig." He leans forward, rests his arms on the table. His fingers clench and unclench. "Couldn't bring myself to dig, because I remembered Hell. But then I finally got more scared of losing you than going back there. So I summoned up the demon. Told her what I wanted."

Dad stops, and all Dean can hear is all three of them breathing.

"How long?" Sam says, his voice choked. "How long did you get?"

But Dad lets out a short, bitter laugh. "Nothing. She refused the deal." His mouth twists with a strangely gentle cynicism as he glances from Dean to Sam. "Said she knew all about us Winchesters and how sneaky we were, and she had one in the hand and wasn't going to give that up. Unless she could get all three of us, now that...that was a deal worth having."

Dean remembers Dad's words, _I didn't want this gift from you._ "It's okay," he says. "Really, I..."

"No, it's not okay, Dean," Dad says. "It's not. It's really not."

"Tomorrow morning," Sam says, voice thick. "We're going with you."

"You can't..."

"Yeah, Dean, I guess we can," Dad says, rising to his feet. "I guess me and Sam, we can do anything we fucking please, and if you want you can drive off alone in your car tomorrow and there's not a damn thing you can do to stop us from following you in Sam's car."

Wrapped in his own particular kind of silence, Dad walks out. The screen door bangs shut behind him.

* * *

Ava and Sam's living room is dark except for the flickering of black and light shadows from _The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari_ playing on the big flat-panel TV screen.

"Man, your ass would've so been toast if I hadn't been there." Sam takes another swallow of beer. He'd started the evening in the arm chair, but now he's sitting on the floor with his back against the couch, long legs sprawled out.

" _My_ ass? Who figured out what the symbol was and saved your precious neck from being strangled? For the, what was it, tenth time?"

The movie's on mute; they're not really watching it, except to glance at the TV now and again. Dean's seen it about ten times already and he'd rather watch _Evil Dead_ but it doesn't matter. Right now, he doesn't care, it could be _Bambi_ and it'd be okay. He's a little buzzed from the beer and junk food -- stuff he hasn't been eating the last few years because he's become aware that it's started to affect his body badly.

Screw that.

Sam seemed surprised when Dean turned down Sam's offer of a big party. He even hinted at a live band and Dean's pretty sure he could've gotten Sam to agree to hire strippers.

 _Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go / I wanna be sedated / Nothin' to do and nowhere to go-o-oh..._ Damn lame-ass song's stuck in his head. It's not even an earworm because he hasn't heard it recently. With an effort, he tries to replace it with Johnny Cash: _And I sent for the mayor but he's out to lunch / I've got twenty more minutes to go..._

"We're keeping score?" Sam bends one knee, nudging the coffee table and making an empty beer bottle tip over. "If we're keeping score, I've saved your life twenty-seven and a half times."

"Dude." Dean scoops up more salsa onto another corn chip. Strippers would be great, but this -- this is okay too. He slides down off the couch to sit on the floor next to Sam. There's popcorn all over the rug; idly Dean thinks about Ava having to clean it up and being pissed off at them, then figures, no, she won't be. "How can you save someone's life by _a half_? You either save them or you don't."

Sam glances at the TV, the shadows playing over his face making him look even older than he usually does, and Dean again marvels that his little brother could ever look _old_. "That time when you were in high school. In Milwaukee, remember? You'd already gotten yourself out of the killer vines by the time I showed up. So technically, I guess you could've saved yourself if I hadn't shown up."

He remembers that, slashing with his knife, leaves in his face and mouth and ear, frantic because a ridiculous killer weed, like something from a low-budget horror movie, had turned out to be more than he could handle by himself. The fact is, he probably would be dead if Sam hadn't decided to check up on him, even though Sam was supposed to stay safe at home, with Dad out of town.

Killer weed. Sure as shit, he's had a kind of colorful life. Maybe he should've written a memoir. Turn him into a legend. Like fuckin' Jack Kerouac. _Maybe that's what life is, a wink of the eye._ But Dean's never really gotten Kerouac. People are mad, not always in a good way, and the open road isn't the best way to live, it's just the only way Dean thought he knew how. But he's been in one place for a few years, going out on hunts but knowing he's always welcome in Sam and Ava's house. Dean's there more than he is in the tiny apartment across town that he calls headquarters.

"One of us should've been able to save you. _I_ should've figured out how to save you," Sam says, his voice so soft Dean would think he's imagining the words except that Sam's put the beer bottle down and he's looking right at Dean like someone's kicked his lost sick puppy.

Crap, he hates it when Sam looks like that. Dean reaches for more chips and salsa and crunches loudly. He swallows. "You did everything you could," he says. The movie ends and the screen goes blank, leaving them in a weird half-darkness.

Sam's voice is hard with a stubborn note. "But we haven't..."

"Are you starting that again?" Dean pushes himself up, sitting up straighter and rubs his hand over his face, trying to clear his head, to say this just right, to _think_.

He doesn't get the chance, though, because Sam's on his feet. "I know just how Dad feels." He switches on a lamp and the sudden light is blinding and unwelcome. It casts light upward onto Sam's face and it actually softens his features now, making him look more like the little boy who used to follow Dean around everywhere. "I should've traded myself."

"Don't be an ass," Dean says.

"Takes one to know one."

"It wouldn't work anyway. You heard Dad."

"But I should have tried. I should have."

"You couldn't possibly. Never. Okay? You got that?" Now Dean's on his feet too, a bit unsteady, but that's from sitting for so many hours, not from the beers. He can still hold his liquor, just maybe not the way he once could. "You've got Ava, the kids, they all need you."

Sam is silent, his hands curling into fists and he takes a step towards Dean.

"What," Dean says, bracing himself. "You finally going to take that rain check?"

"Maybe I should," says Sam. "You need someone to punch you. "

He feels the tug, the one he's tried to ignore for years, the undertow of regret. If he gives into it, it'll devour him whole. Stepping closer to Sam, he holds up his hands. "Hey," he says. "Can we not do this? Can we not fight?"

In the darkness, Sam goes frighteningly still for a moment, then gives a slow nod. He turns away, wiping his sleeve across his face.

Dean lets himself go under, only a for a moment. He lets himself think about working on car engines and standing in the rain at free outdoor rock concerts and the strange flame that consumes spirits when they go, about french fries and Jill and afternoons spent with Sam's kids. Then he shuts it off.

He's not going to torment Sam more by saying out loud what he's finally admitted to himself, and lets the words _I don't want to go_ stay unspoken and safe.

The argument seems to be over; Sam starts throwing a few empty beer bottles into a trash can. Dean lets out an inward sigh of relief when Sam stops cleaning up and nods at the TV. "You want to watch another movie?" His voice sounds a little too thick.

"Sure." Dean sits back down on the floor, aims the remote, and selects _Evil Dead_ from the list of movies on the screen.

They watch for a while and Dean finishes off the bottle of beer he was working on, then decides he's had enough. He stares at Bruce Campbell battling cheesy horror effects and keeps thinking about his father standing alone at a crossroads in the middle of the night and the look on Sam's face, ten years ago when Dean showed up at the motel with Dad.

* * *

A patch of morning sun coming in through the living room windows wakes Dean up. He's lying on the floor with a blanket over him, but he doesn't remember getting one. There's a sour taste in the back of his throat. The TV is off, the rest of the trash has been thrown away, and when Dean glances over at his brother lying a few yards away, he sees there's a blanket over Sam as well.

Dad's asleep on the couch, fully clothed with his boots neatly arranged on the floor, one arm flung across his face.

Dean gets up and puts his blanket over his father. He'll let Dad and Sam sleep a while.

He makes a pot of coffee and pours himself a mug, inhaling the scent, drinking as slowly as he can.

* * *

Dean's got Mary held in the curve of one arm, her arms tight around his neck. Mary thinks Uncle Dean's going on one of his many trips.

Ava holds Jim up to him, and he plants a kiss on Jim's curly head and starts to detach Mary. She pulls her head back and stares at him, right into his eyes. It's like she's staring down through all the layers right into his soul.

He breaks the look first. "Look after Jimmy," he says to her, and she nods seriously, her small brow looking uncannily adult for a moment. Dean touches her nose, and she giggles, becoming a normal little girl again.

He puts her down and Ava, Jim tucked on one hip, stands on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. "Sam's right about you," she says, pursing her lips.

"About what?"

"You're a stubborn bastard." There are unshed tears standing in her eyes. She looks away quick, busying herself with her children, ushering them towards the kitchen.

Dean wonders what Jill is doing right at that moment.

Out in the car, Sam and Dad are waiting for him.

"You sure about this?" Dad says, as Dean gets in the driver's seat.

"Yeah." Kind of late in the game not to be sure. And it’s weird, but he is. Sure’s not the same thing as happy, or even accepting, but ...

Yeah. He’s sure.

He could go to any crossroads, but he chose the one where it all started because it takes a few days to drive there.

A few days, but driving there feels like one long day, stretching like summer.

They use back roads, stop for meals, stretch their legs. The three of them use the hood of the car as a table, looking at golden fields or red clay riverbanks or truck stops. They argue over who gets the last french fry, over what should be playing on the now barely functioning tape deck -- it’s friendly arguing, pleasantly abrasive like a good backscratch, and irrelevant anyway since they’d probably let Dean play what he wants even if he weren’t driving.

One long day, slowly drawing to a close.

Sunset colors fan up from the horizon all around, and the road’s wide and open in front of them, and the Impala sings to him: _Oh, I did somebody some good, somebody some good / Oh, did somebody some good, I must have did somebody some good...._

* * *

Like that, they arrive.

Dean stands on the dirt of the crossroads. It's almost midnight, and Dean's got the lyrics of that old song stuck in his head again, _I do pretty well, till after sundown, suppertime I'm feelin' sad..._

Dad turns slowly, watching the trees, body tense. For a blink he's like he was before, it's like they're on a hunt together.

Ten minutes.

"You need to go."

"We're staying with you." Sam takes a step closer; Dean knows that body language, when Sam using his height on purpose. Damn him and his _looming_.

"No. You're not."

Without any warning at all, Dad grabs Dean, pulls him into a hug, holding him so hard he pushes the breath from Dean's body. Dean holds on tight, as his father whispers his ear, "You should have let me stay in Hell."

Five minutes.

He grabs Sam's wrist, pushes the keys to the Impala against his palm, closes Sam's reluctant fingers around the keys and lets go. Sam stares down at his fist, and when he looks up, his mouth is set in a grim line and his eyes are damp.

Dean starts wondering if he'll have to take out both Dad _and_ Sam if it comes to that, if he even could, but he doesn't get the chance to finish that train of thought.

Sam's embrace is like Dad's, bone-crushing and all-encompassing. For a moment he's so startled his arms hang at his sides, pinioned, and then he hugs Sam back. He feels his brother's hand curl into a fist, digging into his shoulder through the leather jacket, feels the tremor that shakes through Sam's wiry body before Sam stumbles back out of Dean's arms.

"You're such a stubborn sonuvabitch."

"Huh," Dean says. "Your wife said you thought I was a stubborn _bastard_."

"That too." Sam sniffs hard, then gives a shaky laugh.

One minute.

The wind picks up, tossing the tree branches violently against the sky. Sam and Dad move to flank him, one on either side.

In the moonlight, details stand out sharply etched: the lines at the corners of Sam's eyes, the old crease of a scar on his father's face. Dean wonders if he'll remember these things in Hell, how long he'll still be himself before he forgets the words to _Stairway to Heaven_ , forgets what beer tastes like, how a woman feels, what his brother's laugh sounds like, what his father's smile looks like, how the Impala's engine sounds going eighty on a dark highway. How long before he goes insane.

He makes up his mind not to go insane and instead thinks about how Mary looks when she's curious, how Jim looks when he's sleepy. How Sam looked, two years old, his crying subsiding to hiccups and then to giggles as Dean made goofy faces.

White fabric flutters in the darkness. There's a curve of bare legs, a flash of red eyes. A low growl from the shadows.

The old song's still running through his head, _...feelin' sad, really gets bad, round, round, round midnight..._ , and the wind kicks up the dust as Sam tenses beside him, as Dad takes a step forward.

  
~end

\+ Lyrics taken from:  
"Die With Your Boots On", Iron Maiden  
"For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)", AC/DC  
"Everything Louder Than Everything Else," Meat Loaf  
"I Wanna Be Sedated," The Ramones  
"Twenty-Five Minutes To Go," Johnny Cash/Shel Silverstein  
"In My Time Of Dying," Led Zeppelin  
"Round Midnight," Thelonius Monk

ETA 8/26/2008: You've suffered enough. Now go read the [Epilogue](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/157538.html). Have a cookie. /ETA

[Part 1/4](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/133763.html#cutid1)   
[Part 2/4](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/134075.html#cutid1)   
[Part 3/4](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/134168.html#cutid1)   
[Part 4/4](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/134572.html#cutid1)


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